Once Upon A Time at College
by Lawndale Stalker
Summary: Daria finds that there's more to college life than the heady pursuit of higher learning. More of Ch. 13 up!
1. Chapter One

Once Upon A Time in College   
Chapter One  
By Lawndale Stalker

~*~

Daria Morgendorffer held her brush poised over the paper for a moment, then with a single assured stroke, laid in a line of far hazy hills below her completed sky. Returning to her previous position, she studied her color sketch and a reference photograph. She then added a touch of green and yellow to the pigment puddle in the mixing area and laid in washes for more hills in the middle distance. The cool north light from a mostly clear Boston sky streaming through the window to her left provided ideal illumination to paint by.

Daria knelt on a cushion, her paper, paintbox, and equipment on the floor before her. Jane Lane stood nearby at her easel, palette and brushes in her hands, also painting. She looked from Daria to her canvas and swiftly delineated Daria's right forearm, then picked up some slightly darker paint from her palette and filled in an area of Daria's thigh while Daria's arm was moving. Jane was dressed much the way she had in high school, except that gray slacks had replaced the gray shorts she used to wear. Daria was not dressed.

Jane scumbled in some shading on Daria's brush arm while it was still, then looked back to her model. The chill air in the loft had brought out goosebumps on Daria's skin. The space was heated, but the temperature never quite seemed to reach seventy degrees in the winter months. Complaints to the landlord brought promises to "check into it," but no extra heat. Jane observed the texture of the goosebumps on Daria's skin with an artist's eye, and wished she knew a technique that could capture it short of all-out, take-forever photorealism. 

Daria shivered. "This is pretty spartan, even for a garret," she remarked. 

Jane glanced around the space. Since it was an attic, the only vertical walls were around the bathroom and the stairwell. These were covered with drawings and paintings. All else was neither wall nor ceiling, sloping up to a peak at about a forty-five degree angle. Mattresses, belongings, and strange objects were pushed to the sides where there was insufficient room to stand upright. Two battered tables and some mismatched chairs were the only furniture. "Well, I need the north light but, artist stereotypes aside, I'd rather not actually starve. This is the best I could get and still maintain a greater-than-zero food budget."

"Hmm. So, do you have an eskimo girl lined up to model for you for the next few months?"

"What?"

"Well, I can't do it. You're gonna freeze your butt off up here this winter, even all bundled up. I'll never be able to pose nude here if it gets any colder than this."

"Aww, c'mon, amiga…"

"Jane, I couldn't hold still if I tried. I get cold a lot faster when I can't move, you know. Dressed normally, I can hold a pose comfortably down to about sixty-eight degrees. With no clothes on, the temperature needs to be at least seventy-two, preferably seventy-five or warmer. I'm shivering right now. Paint faster."

The rattle of the doorknob preempted Jane's reply. "Don't come in," she called out, "I'm in the…" 

There was a sound of a shoulder against the door, and it opened wide, admitting a young man in a field jacket. "Hey, a model!" he said, pulling a sketchbook out of the satchel he carried.

His next words were drowned out by Daria's shriek as she sprang up, grabbed the cushion and, holding it between her and him, dashed for the bathroom, which provided the only privacy in the garret, and was where her clothes were. 

"What's the matter with the model?" the man asked.

Jane glanced at the closed bathroom door, from behind which a string of bad words was emerging. Not sentences, or even descriptive phrases, just the words. She could tell that Daria was extremely upset. She turned to glare at the young man. "Dammit, Geoff, you said you'd be gone till six," she replied, pushing him toward the door. "Wait outside."

Geoff took a couple of steps backward. "Jane, we explained to you about sharing. I thought you understood." 

"I'm not gonna 'share' my best friend," she whispered fiercely. "She was only modeling for me as a personal favor! She'll probably never model for anyone, now! Wait outside!"

Looking put upon, but sensing this wasn't the time to stand up for his viewpoint, Geoff allowed himself to be pushed back out onto the stairway landing. The door slammed, leaving him in semi-gloom.

Daria jerked on her panties and pullover, stepped into her skirt and zipped it up. She got control of herself enough to stop mindlessly spouting every bad word she knew. Ignoring Jane calling her name, she checked out the ancient toilet stool to be sure it was reasonably clean, then sat and began pulling on her socks and boots.

There came a soft knock on the door. "Daria, I'm sorry. You saw me lock the door. I don't know how he got in," Jane said.

Daria started to lace her boots, then decided it would take too much time. Suddenly, she wanted nothing in the world more than to get out of this garret, out of this tenement, and back to her dorm room. Daria threw on her jacket and stuffed her bra in one of the pockets. _You try to help someone, and look what it gets you…_

Jane was about to knock on the bathroom door again when it burst open and Daria rushed out. She charged across the room and through the door to the stairs. The young man was on the landing. "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't…" 

"Move or die!" Daria snarled, pushing past him and clattering down the stairs at dangerous speed. 

Jane came right behind her. "Hey, I didn't…" he tried again.

"The door was locked, dammit!" Jane shouted as she shoved by and headed down the stairs after Daria.

~*~

Daria burst out the door of the apartment building. Spotting a bus approaching, she ran for the bus stop as fast as she could without running out of her unlaced boots, waving at the driver with one hand and clutching her jacket closed with the other. She hurried up the steps and disappeared inside. 

Jane likewise ran for the bus stop, beginning to close the lead that Daria had somehow opened on the stairs. She stopped at the [money machine] and looked down the length of the bus. Daria was nowhere in sight. "Daria!" Jane called out. "You left your painting stuff!" There was no reply but the curious stares of the passengers. 

Knowing that Daria couldn't have gotten off the bus without being seen, Jane tried again. "Come on, Daria, it was an accident!" 

The bus driver, a black woman with a sympathetic expression, said, "Miss, if you want to ride, please deposit your fare."

Jane considered doing that, but she hadn't put on a jacket before running out after Daria, and her painting stuff, and Daria's too, were laid out unattended in the loft. At a minimum, she needed to cap the paint tubes and clean the brushes. Daria would want her watercolor field kit and the painting she'd been working on, but Jane doubted that she would return for it any time soon, if ever. Scanning the seats once more for her friend, without success, she reluctantly turned and exited the bus. The door hissed closed and it pulled away from the curb. Jane sadly watched as the bus rumbled off down the street, then turned and headed back to the old dilapidated apartment building that was now her home.

In a seat toward the back of the bus, Daria finished tying her bootlaces. Not knowing whether or not Jane had decided to pay the fare and ride, Daria wiped away the tears, put on her poker face, and straightened up. Jane wasn't on board. Good. Daria didn't feel like dealing with her now, or anyone else. Carefully not looking around to see if the other passengers were staring at her (they almost certainly would be), Daria settled into her seat and strove to compose her feelings to match her face. _You shouldn't be surprised,_ she told herself. _No good deed goes unpunished. You've known that for a long time._

Note: In case you're wondering what happened to the last ficlet I posted here, I forgot to change the rating from G, and it was removed for "content in excess of rating." I was exiled. 

But I have returned from Elba. Soon, Europe will again squirm and grovel beneath my tiny boots! Er, I mean, I'll try to be more careful.

LS

Disclaimer: "Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty [gehardesty@yahoo.com]


	2. Chapter Two

Daria glared at her roommate's back from beneath lowered eyebrows. Charlene was seated at her desk and had a textbook open in front of her, but Daria had a hard time believing that she was actually able to read anything with her head bobbing around like that. Pop music and a high, shrill teenage voice, whining to the world about being misunderstood, leaked out of her headphones. Well, thought Daria, at least she used headphones. Her last roommate couldn't seem to understand that not every college student loved Death Metal at max volume. When Daria studied or worked to music, it was usually something by Beethoven for writing or Bach for math. She was for this reason considered deeply weird. Apparently no one else in the dorm was aware of the enhanced concentration and retention that could be gained in this way. Right now, Daria wished she had a CD of pink noise to play through her own headset to drown out what was leaking out of Charlene's. But not nearly as much as she wished she was back in her room with the padded walls at home, blissfully alone.

Daria was about to get up and root out a Beethoven CD when there was a soft knock at the door. A glance confirmed that Charlene had heard nothing. Daria sighed, threw off the blanket she'd wrapped around herself, uncoiled from her cross-legged position, and rose from her bed. _It's probably Jane anyway, _she thought as she walked the three steps to the door. _She knows me well enough to know I'll be moping in my room with a book. _

Daria opened the door. It was indeed Jane standing there. _I guess I know her pretty well, too,_ she thought. She leaned out into the hallway and looked up and down it. "Where's your friend the doorbuster?" 

Jane looked miserable. "I'm really sorry about that, Daria. He said he'd be gone all afternoon. He shouldn't have been back till after six." 

Daria stared at Jane for a couple of seconds, then silently took a step back. Jane took it as an invitation and entered the small, somewhat cramped dorm room. 

"I brought your paint set and your painting," Jane began diffidently, holding them out. 

Daria took the items and laid them on her desk, saying nothing, then gestured to Jane to sit in the desk chair.

Jane sat down, and Daria sat on her bed and tucked her stockinged feet under her.

Daria looked at Jane's sad countenance for a couple of seconds, then asked, "Who the hell was he, anyway?"

"His name's Geoff. He lives there." 

"In the loft? With you? I saw stuff in there that I knew wasn't yours, but I sort of assumed that it would belong to another girl." Daria glanced at Charlene, who remained oblivious. "So are you… more than just roommates?"

"You mean, are we doing the bone dance? The horizontal hokey-pokey? Making ends meet?" Jane smirked. "No. The other guys would feel left out."

"Other guys? Daria looked at Jane, surprised. "How many guys are we talking about here? I wouldn't have thought there was room for more than two."

Jane said, "There are four of us in there now. Traditionally, that's considered capacity, but there have been as many as seven. It works because we're all art students, and because there are a set of rules and traditions that we all accept and follow."

"Traditions?"

"Yeah. That loft has been occupied by BFAC students for a long time now, and there's kind of a micro culture that's handed down from tenant to tenant. We're all here for the same thing, and we're all on a tight budget. It's almost like a little tiny commune." 

"Hm. It sure didn't take you long to go all left-bank and bohemian. But why did he barge in like that? And how? I saw you lock the door."

"Believe me, I asked him that. He said he thought the doorknob was just stuck again. Apparently, that door was jimmied sometime in the past, and now if you put your shoulder against the doorframe and pull the knob the other way, everything gives enough so that the door will open even if it's locked. I'm sorry, Daria. I didn't know."

"I guessed it'd be something like that." Daria sighed and stared at her book for a minute. "Apology accepted."

Jane smiled with relief. "Geoff is sorry too. He says he'd like to apologize in person."

"Tell him I accept his apology, but we must never meet. If I ever come face to face with him, I'll have to kill him. That, or die of embarrassment."

"Come on, Daria. I thought you were over that." 

"I'm over it enough that I can model for you without blushing to death, but I'm still not a nudist or a stripper. Being caught naked in a strange garret in a strange city by a strange man isn't quite the same thing as being caught naked in my bedroom by my mother," Daria replied, staring fixedly at the book in front of her.

Jane gazed sadly at her friend. Plainly, Daria was still upset over the incident. "I feel really awful about that, Daria. Is there any way I can make it up to you?"

Daria looked up at Jane and smiled minutely. "Don't worry about it," she replied.

"The way you stormed out of there, I thought you were so furious you might not speak to me for a week."

"The term 'murderous rage' comes to mind. At first, I was startled and scared. Some total stranger bashes in the door and catches me naked. I didn't know what was going on. When you called him by name, I guessed he wasn't some dope-crazed rapist. That left me very embarrassed and angry." Daria looked down at her lap. "I figured there was probably going to be some semi-reasonable explanation, and that I should calm down and deal with it rationally. But I was just too upset to talk to anyone right then. I wanted to kill him, and then maybe you too. I think I told you once that I'd rather be hit by a train than be embarrassed like that. I couldn't regain control that fast. I had to get away so I could cool down."

"Why did you hide on the bus?"

"I wasn't hiding. I was tying my bootlaces."

"Oh. How in the world did you get down four flights of stairs that fast with unlaced boots?"

Daria shrugged her shoulders. An awkward silence ensued. To break it, Jane picked up the unfinished landscape from the desk. "This is looking really good. I wish you could have finished it. Is it a problem to finish a watercolor when it dries before it's done?"

Daria was a bit surprised to find that she knew more than Jane about any type of painting. It occurred to her that this might just be a conversational gambit on Jane's part. Well, if so, she'd play along. "It would have been if I'd been painting wet-in-wet, but I wasn't. I painted the sky wet-in-damp, but once that was finished, I can let it dry and go back into it as many times as I want, as long as I don't get a passage too wet and make a balloon. I couldn't have finished it in the garret anyway. I was about ready to stop painting before that guy barged in. I was having trouble holding the brush steady because I was shivering."

Jane sighed and laid the piece of heavy watercolor paper back on Daria's desk. "Yeah, and I'm afraid you're right about it getting colder in that garret. Jim said that a couple of times last winter, early in the morning, he could see his breath. And of course, it gets hot in the summer."

"I thought you had enough money to get a better place than that."

"So did I, but books and materials set me back a lot more than I expected." Jane pointed at the opened book lying face down on the end of Daria's bed. "Whatcha reading?"

"The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. It was written in the thirties under Stalin. The main character is the devil. It's awful in spots and funny in spots, but I don't know what it means. Not yet, anyway."

"Why do you read stuff like that?"

Daria gazed thoughtfully at the book for a few seconds. "Sometimes to study the author's style, sometimes for distraction, sometimes just 'cause it's nice to read about people whose lives are more screwed up than mine…"

"Liar!" the choked scream came from Charlene. Startled, Daria and Jane looked up at her. Still moving to her music, She seemed unaware how loud her vocalization had been. _Involuntary sing-along_, Daria surmised. Charlene still seemed to be looking at her textbook, but Daria could not recall having seen her turn a page yet.

Jane looked at Daria and jerked her head at the door. Daria, sighing, nodded, and began putting her boots on.

Five minutes later, the two friends paused at the bottom of the stairs and surveyed the lounge area. About half the seats were filled, some by girls and boys conversing together, some by single students apparently waiting for someone. A small group was gathered around the TV, which was showing a football game. Without a word, Daria and Jane passed through the lobby and out the door. 

Outside, Daria paused and looked around. A fitful, chilly breeze stole away the slight warmth given by the thin afternoon sunshine. Privacy was plentiful outdoors on the Raft campus today, but they would be driven back inside before long. She looked at Jane, and recalled that, a couple of hours ago, she'd fully intended to peel a strip off her when they next met, and she'd had plenty of verbal ammo stored up ready to go. Why hadn't she used it?

She shivered in a cold gust of wind. Boston was a cold place in more ways than one, she realized, and Jane was not only her only friend here, she was the only person in Boston Daria really knew at all. Many things were new and strange for them both, and they'd both left a lot behind, much of which they'd taken for granted, when they'd left the nest. She could get by here without Jane, she knew, but she didn't want to.

Jane turned to Daria. "Pizza? I think I have enough for a slice at Tony's."

Daria smiled a bit. "I found another place nearby. All the pizza you can eat for three sixty-nine. They even have a rudimentary salad bar and dessert."

"Really? That I can afford. Is it any good?" Jane asked.

"Yeah. They're not quite as generous with the toppings as Pizza King, but it's still good. They usually have ten to fifteen different kinds of pizza on the line."

"Well, I gotta at least try it. Lead on, Morgendorffer."

Daria turned and set off diagonally across the campus. They walked along in silence for a few moments. She remembered how she'd been looking forward to college for so many years, and to the possibilities of making new friends among all these above-average people her age. That hadn't happened yet. Daria had of course been busy, but still…she made a mental note to be more outgoing and receptive. As she filed it away, she heard that little voice in her head say "_yeah, right_." 

__

No, seriously, she thought back emphatically. The little voice fell skeptically silent.

They halted at the edge of campus for a moment, waiting for a break in traffic, then hurried across the street.

Their shadows on the wall seemed to walk beside them as they walked along the sidewalk on the far side of the boulevard. At the end of the block they turned right, and their shadows stretched far ahead. "So how are you doing at BFAC?" Daria asked.

"Good. Doing great in Oils, learning a lot in Sketching, even doing pretty good in Art History. Got a darn essay due in that, though. Whole class is dreading it."

The corner of Daria's mouth turned up. "Look at it as an opportunity. Write a couple extra essays for other students and trade them for engravings of former Presidents."

Jane chuckled. "That sounds like a Daria thing to do." She looked over at Daria. "Are you doing that?"

The other corner of Daria's mouth turned up. "I've proofread and punched up a few. It's so easy now that everyone has a computer. They hand me a floppy or email it, I run it through my word processor, make a few changes, hand back the floppy in exchange for some lira, everybody's happy."

"I may just do that," Jane replied thoughtfully. "I seem to know the subject better than most of the others in that class. My grammar and structure aren't all that good, though."

"Email 'em to me and I'll take a look at 'em. We take a right here." The two girls rounded a corner. "There it is," Daria said, pointing, "Mama Mimi's Pizza."

~*~

"Mm. I have to say I'm surprised. This ham and pineapple pizza is better than I thought it would be. And that chicken, broccoli, three cheese one is great!" Jane said between bites.

"Yeah, whodathunkit? That surprised me, too," Daria agreed. "The barbecue one doesn't impress me, though."

"Maybe if they'd put some meat on it instead of just barbecue sauce," Jane nodded. "But hey, you can't have everything, they say. This could get to be my favorite cheap pizza place. I wonder how they keep the prices so low so close to a college campus? You gotta know a lot of students come here for their only meal of the day and pig out. I would."

"Illegal aliens." 

Jane looked around. "I don't see any. I can see four employees, and they all look like college students to me."

"No, I mean the meat toppings are all made out of illegal aliens," Daria replied, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly.

Smirking, Jane picked up her slice of chicken and broccoli pizza and took another bite out of it. "Hmm. They taste like chicken."


	3. Chapter Three

Once Upon A Time at College

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Three

~*~

They ate in silence for several minutes, except for the sounds of contented munching. Then Daria pushed back her chair. "I'm going to get some more salad."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Surely that's not all? Why come to an all-you-can-eat pizza joint if you're not gonna have seconds on pizza?" 

Daria smiled slightly. "Oh, I think I can manage another slice or two, and maybe a slice of that apple cinnamon pizza for dessert. You can get refills on your drink, too."

Jane grinned and pushed back her chair. "Okay, this is definitely my favorite cheap pizza place."

As Daria sat down with her salad Jane returned with another plate of pizza. "So, how are you getting along in the dorm? That roommate of yours seems kind of annoying."

Daria made a face. "Somewhat, but she's a lot better than my first two. One thought her mission in life was to play DJ to the entire dorm, and the other one was constantly talking about boys and trying to give me makeovers."

"Ooh. How bad did you hurt them?"

Daria smiled. "No permanent physical injuries, but one thinks the room is haunted by the ghost of a serial killer, and the other one thinks I'm a powerful practitioner of the Dark Arts."

"Hee hee. Which of course you are. So they've all lived in constant fear of you since then?"

"You give them too much credit. A bunch of them decided to prank me. Being unimaginative, they tried the old trash-can-full-of-water-leaned-against-my-door trick. Guess they thought it was foolproof, since the room doors only open inward. They never figured I might be prepared for it. Never even noticed that I'd installed one of those fisheye door scopes."

"So what did you do, phone for someone to come move the trash can?"

"That would be a wimpy thing to do. Like I said, I was prepared. While I was installing the door scope, I drilled another little hole in the door down below the knob. I stuck a steel rod through that hole and pushed the trash can back upright with it. Then, having seen who did it and what room they were hiding in, Charlene and I just took the trash can and leaned it against that door. You should've heard the shrieks when they opened it to peek." 

"So now you're the Dark Queen of the dorm?"

"Well, not really. They tried for revenge a couple of times, but I spotted their attempts and avoided them."

"How did you do that" 

"Research. Type "college dorm pranks" into a search engine. You'll be amazed at what you get. Turns out pranksters put up bulletin boards so they can boast about their exploits."

Jane shook her head in amazement. "Trust you to be the one who finds something like that. But doesn't it take some of the fun out of the thing to copy someone else's prank?"

"Oh, I agree. I just read those boards to give me an idea what to look out for. I much prefer to think up my own pranks."

"Oh, goodie! Tell me!" 

"Well, for one I collected a bunch of spider egg cases and hid them in one room. A few days later, thousands of tiny spiders start appearing, crawling all over, making their webs everywhere. I think they're still hatching out."

Grinning, Jane started on another slice of chicken, broccoli, three cheese pizza. "Sounds like you're having a helluva good time. I'm a little jealous."

Daria sighed. "It's somewhat amusing, but I wasn't expecting to have to share a dorm room. A ten by twelve foot room per person doesn't seem to me like it's too much to ask. I often wonder how many students have flunked out of college or not gotten good enough grades to get the job they wanted because they couldn't study in their dorms. You'd think it would be a great situation to meet people and make friends, but in practice, it seems to force us into an adversarial relationship." She pushed her chair back, picked up her empty glass, and stood up. "Be back in a minute."

~*~

Several minutes later, the two friends were finishing up their seconds on pizza and preparing to start in on dessert. Jane wiped her hands carefully and reached in a pocket of her jacket. "Oh, before I forget, here's your color sketch and your reference photo. I just love this sketch. It's so lively and painterly. I bet you could sell it as a miniature."

Likewise wiping her hands, Daria accepted the print and the small watercolor sketch with a small rueful smile. "Thanks. You know, it's funny, but those little color sketches often turn out to be better than the finished paintings I do from them. I do the sketches with the idea that they're not the finished product, so I don't take much time with them and paint them kind of loose and slapdash. I tend to take too much time on the big paintings and put too many details in. Sometimes they come out the way I want them to, but sometimes they turn out dull and overworked. Guess it's a good thing I'm not hoping to be a professional artist."

"Even so, you have a real talent there, and you should develop it."

"I'd like to, but what with classes and trying to write and hunting for scholarship money, that may be the last watercolor I do for quite a while. And of course I'm only doing that one because that's the pose you wanted. Do you think your painting is going to work out the way you envisioned it?"

"I really do, Daria. I'm really excited about this one. It's going to be the best one I've done of you. I think it may fetch more than the others."

"That would be great. I'd like to see you in a better place than that attic. You've been there long enough now to list 'starved in a garret' on your résumé. I still can't picture you living with three guys you hardly know in one room with no privacy."

Jane toyed with her straw. "It doesn't seem so strange to me, probably because I grew up in a bigger family than you did. Any privacy I had as a kid was temporary and dependent on other peoples' cooperation." She sighed and stared into her soda. "I picked that garret so I'd have a place where I could paint you. I didn't know it would get so chilly in the winter, or that the door was messed up. If I could finish that painting and sell it, I could afford a better place."

Daria looked at her friend and fought off a small twinge of guilt. "Can you finish it without me modeling again?" 

Jane continued to stare into her cola as she stirred it idly with her straw. "I could finish the background. I guess I could put in your paper, paintbox, and water jar if you'll let me borrow them, and I could finish the underpainting for your figure. But I can't actually finish the painting without you."

"Can't you get another model?"

"If I could, it wouldn't help me to finish this painting."

Daria scowled. "Well, dammit, I'm not going back to that garret except maybe to help you move out of it." She nibbled some salad. "My room at home has two east-facing windows. That's as good as north-facing in the afternoon. You can finish it there, can't you?"

Jane thoughtfully chewed a bite of sausage, mushroom, and black olive pizza. "Yes, given a sunny day, but Spring break is two months away, and I don't think we get any long weekends before then, do we?"

Daria thought a minute. "No, I don't think so. And I don't like the idea of you in that garret with three guys. Hormones and pheromones are dangerous things. I know. You're all too young and horny for that to be a safe arrangement."

"You're worrying for nothing, Daria. If one of them were to try something, the other two would stop him."

"I take it you've never heard the term "gang bang."

"Oh, come on, Daria, these are decent guys. They wouldn't do anything like that."

"What about in the morning when you're all getting dressed? I bet all four of you don't always wait your turns to dress in that bathroom, especially when you all need it for other things too. How often do they see something you don't intend for them to? Things like that can really jack up a guy's hormone levels."

"Daria, they're not going to accidentally see anything I don't want them to. They've already seen all there is to see."

"You mean you…" Daria hesitated. "What do you mean?"

"We're art students, Daria. We model for each other." 

Daria stared at Jane in silence for a couple of seconds, then clapped a hand to her forehead and rested her elbow on the table. "So you model nude for three young men in that little garret, and then they take turns doing the same?" She looked up at Jane again.

"You make it sound like an orgy. We're artists. This is part of what artists do. You know that. You've done it yourself. The figure is a time-honored subject for artists."

"I know, Jane. But it's _where _you're doing it. Don't you know that the male sex pheromone is an aerosol?"

Jane stared blankly at Daria for three seconds and then made a whizzing sound as she passed a hand rapidly over the top of her head. 

Daria sighed. "When those guys see you, and especially when they see you naked, they start producing the pheromone. When you inhale it, it arouses you sexually and makes you willing and submissive. It works on a chemical, glandular level over which you have no conscious control whatever. That garret is a small, confined space, and you're not going to have a window open this time of year. Before long, that pheromone builds up to nearly irresistible levels in the air. I think that's what happened to me when I was dumb enough to get into that Pinto with Tom."

Jane continued to stare, but Daria could see the dawn of realization in her expression. "Oh. O-o-o-o-oh! So that's why I get so horny when I'm posing! I thought it was just a natural reaction." 

"It is. There's just more to it than meets the eye. By the way, when a guy smells another guy's pheromones, it makes him more aggressive."

"Hmm," Jane muttered, lost in thought. Daria took the opportunity to catch up on eating.

"I see why you're worried," Jane said after a while, "but nothing's happened so far. This arrangement's been going on for a long time, and nothing's happened, as far as I know."

"Do you think those guys would have told you if it had, particularly if they need a female model?" Daria asked.

"Hmm. Maybe not. But I'm kind of stuck there for the time being. If I could find a better place and I could afford it, I'd move out. I'll be able to afford it when I sell that painting, provided I can finish it…" Jane didn't meet Daria's eyes as she said this. Even though the facts were as she stated them, she didn't like the feeling that she was pressuring Daria to do something she didn't want to do.

Daria sighed, stared at her plate, and shook her head minutely. After a moment, she said, "Look, if you can schedule a time when we can have the place to ourselves for at least two hours, _and_ come up with some foolproof way to keep that door securely closed, I can come up with a portable electric heater. Is there an outlet within ten feet of where I was?"

"I think the closest one's about twelve feet away."

"That'll do. Can you finish that painting in two more hours?" 

"I think so. I know I can finish in three, and I can get the loft for that long. Can you model for three hours?"

"With breaks. My legs might go to sleep, but I'll do it."

Jane smiled a big smile. "Thanks, amiga. Let me buy you another dessert."

~*~

It was dark as Daria and Jane emerged from Mama Mimi's Pizza and turned left, toward the bus stop. As they walked along the sidewalk among other Raft students and residents, Jane turned to look at Daria, smiled, and shook her head. 

Daria turned and looked at Jane. "What?"

"I'm just really surprised that you changed your mind. I figured I'd have to sign over my firstborn offspring to get you to finish modeling for that painting after what happened."

Daria smiled slightly. "Yeah, I'm a little surprised myself. But I want you out of that garret at least as much as you want out, and I want me out of that dorm pretty bad, too. We were planning to share an apartment here before we left Lawndale. I still want that."

"Great. So do I. I'll do as much on the painting as I can beforehand, and we both start looking for apartments between Raft and BFAC." Jane continued to study Daria's face in the shifting illumination of the night street. 

Feeling Jane's eyes on her, Daria turned again and returned the stare. "Now what?"

"Not to be nosy, but I get the feeling you have another reason."

Daria walked along in silence for a while, her look pensive. At length she said, "I do, sort of. After this, I'll be able to stop feeling guilty about… the Tom thing."

Jane was thunderstruck. "Daria! I am so over that! I'm not holding it against you, not one tiny little bit. I forgave you long ago, really!"

Daria looked over at Jane and smiled sadly. "I know. It's just that… now I can forgive myself. I've forgiven myself before, but… myself didn't buy it. But now I can tell myself I've suffered enough, I've paid my debt. I can quit kicking myself now."

Jane stared openmouthed at her friend until she bumped into another pedestrian and had to return her attention to walking. "Geez, you really are a twisted little cruller."

Eyes on the sidewalk, Daria continued on in silence for several steps before she said, "Yeah. I am.

Jane reached around behind Daria and gave her a side shoulder hug. "And I am so incredibly lucky to have you as a friend."

Daria cringed. "Hey! No ambiguously lesbian PDAs!"

Grinning, Jane dropped her hand from Daria's shoulder. They continued on for a few steps, then Jane impulsively gave her shoulder another quick squeeze. This time Daria didn't cringe.

A movement in the shadows ahead caught Jane's eye. "Uh-oh. Bogey at eleven o'clock."

Daria looked. Ahead to their left, a rumpled, bewhiskered, dirty old man emerged from an alley mouth. His effluvium accosted them before his voice could.

'Scuse me, pretty ladies, couldja spare a little money to get Pete some food? He's awful hungry."

Daria found her voice. "Pete?"

The man held up a squirming opossum. "Pete's muh pet possum. Lost' im 'way back when I uz a little feller. I jest found 'im agin in the alley there. Poor thing uz so hungry he uz eatin' out of a trash can. Ef you purty ladies c'd spare a buck er two, I'll get 'im a can o' good cat food. Pete alluz did love cat food. 'Fact, thass how I caught 'im in the beginnin'. He uz eatin' outta the cat's dish."

"Uh, mister…" Jane began.

"All muh frien's calls me Roger," said the ancient panhandler.

'Roger. You know that can't be the same possum you had when you were a kid. Possums don't live that long."

Daria wanted to jerk Jane aside somewhere and explain to her the futility of trying to reason with senile winos, but settled for rolling her eyes. Jane would learn. Daria's hand slipped inside her jacket.

The old bum gaped at her, near-toothless gums glistening by streetlight. He looked at the possum, then back at Jane. "Wal, o'course he's the same one! Ya think I wouldn't reckonize muh best frien' Pete? Think I'm crazy? Oww!"

The possum, fed up with being waved around by the old bum, had sunk his many pointy teeth into Roger's grimy hand. Startled, Roger released his grip, whereupon "Pete" released his and dropped to the sidewalk. He immediately ran straight away from the addled panhandler at top speed, which for "Pete" was a brisk trot. He trotted between two parked cars and straight into the path of a minivan.

Daria winced. Jane covered her eyes. The old codger gaped unbelieving , then cried out, "Pete! No!" He staggered toward the gory thing in the street, then sank to his knees between the two parked cars. Daria grabbed Jane's arm and dragged her away from the sad scene, with old Roger's cries of "Pete, boy! Speak to me!" ringing in their ears.

[The above senseless tragedy was brought to you at the insistence of Roger E. Moore.]

~*~

Daria and Jane reached the bus stop without further incident and assumed their 'waiting for the bus' stances. After a minute, Jane said "That was so sad!"

"He was a possum. It was his destiny," Daria replied. 

Jane regarded her friend with a wry expression. "Not the possum. The old man. I feel like we should have tried to help him."

Daria returned Jane's wry look with interest. "He needs hosing down, decontamination, detox, a psychiatric exam, a whole lot of counseling, medical care, probably several prescription medications, rehab, food, clothing, and shelter for starters, not to mention a lot of dental work. How much of that can you help him with?"

Jane looked at Daria and smiled a small crooked smile. "So, you're saying 'you can't help everybody.'"

"Pretty much. I know that guy is beyond my ability."

They stood in silence for a couple of minutes. Jane said, "You don't have to wait with me. I'll be all right."

"Yeah, probably. But we don't really know this area yet. If old Roger hangs out here, who else might? Female college students are the highest-risk group in the country for rape, you know."

"Well, maybe keg queens. But it's not the sort of thing that's likely to happen to us."

Daria looked down at the sidewalk. "One in four female college students gets raped or sexually assaulted. One in four, Jane. Of course, that statistic doesn't apply to you. You sleep in the same small room with three male college students, for whom you frequently get naked. Your odds are much closer to one in one."

"Aw, come on, Daria. I know these guys. They wouldn't do that to me. And if they did, I'd turn 'em in, so they'd be fools to try."

Daria shook her head. "Jane, eighty-five percent of college rape victims know their attackers, and only one percent of those are willing to report them. Those guys would say how sorry they were, and you're so beautiful they just couldn't control themselves, and they don't know what came over them, and it would just kill their poor mothers, and please don't ruin their lives by turning them in. And in the end you'd let them get away with it, and you'd carry the psychic scar for the rest of your life."

Jane was silent for a moment. "I can almost see how it might happen that way, now that you describe it. Damn, Daria, how do you know stuff like that?" 

"The statistics? I've read it several places, and seen it on TV, and it stuck in my head. You've probably seen it too, at some time. I just have a good memory."

Jane looked uneasily up and down the street. It was well lit, but still there were dark alleyways and bushes where a lurker could lurk. "Geez, now I feel bad that you're going to have to walk back to your dorm alone."

"I'll be fine. It's only a couple of blocks, and this isn't a bad part of town."

"But that rapist could jump on you as easily as me."

Daria smiled grimly. "I pity the fool."

Jane gave her friend a sardonic look. "Get a load of the iron cupcake, there. You packin' a roscoe, toots?" she said in her 'Dolores' voice.

Daria rocked back and forth a couple of times, looking slightly smug. "I can sling some lead if I need to."

This took Jane by surprise. She had trouble picturing Daria as foolhardy enough to be carrying a concealed handgun in an anti-gun city like Boston. Daria only took carefully calculated risks.

"Daria! You gotta be pulling my leg."

For answer, Daria's hand reached swiftly inside her jacket, then as swiftly pulled back out, and shot out toward a power pole nearby. Her arm was too short by a foot or more to reach the pole, yet it rang with a loud 'tonk!' as something struck it a hard blow. Daria stepped to the pole and ran her fingers over an indentation that had just appeared in the wood, then looked at Jane.

Jane too felt the small but impressively deep dent. She looked at Daria, puzzled. In the poor light of the street, she had seen no rod or pipe in Daria's hand that could account for it, nor had Daria thrown something like a rock. 

"How did you do that?"

Daria held out her closed hand, palm down, toward Jane. "With this."

Jane held out her hand and Daria dropped something into it, something hard and cold and very heavy for its size. When Daria moved her hand away, Jane saw a dark gray teardrop shaped object, hexagonal in cross section. "What is it?"

"A four ounce casting weight." Daria laid a stick pen in Jane's hand beside the weight, and Jane saw that they were connected by a string about one and a half or two feet long. "The whole thing is sort of a pocket morningstar, or maybe a stealth numbchuck."

"So this is what you meant by slinging lead." 

"Yeah. I clip the pen in a pocket where I can reach it quickly, and if I need to, I can whip it out and whack someone with it. It's legal, and it'll probably surprise an attacker. It's very hard to see in motion, even in daylight, so it may take him a while to figure out what he's being hit with."

Holding the pen in her hand, Jane swung the weight around a little. Daria took a step back. "Pretty neat. Looks like it could be very effective. But that string looks awfully thin. Don't you need something a little heftier?"

"That stuff is stronger than it looks. It's high-tech eighty pound test fishing line. They gave me a little of it at the sporting goods store where I bought the weights."

Jane saw the bus approaching the stop. She handed back the "pocket morningstar". "I like it. It's not too heavy or bulky to carry around, not hard to use, and won't get you arrested. I hope you never have to use it, though."

Daria put it back in her pocket. "Me too. I've got more line, and there were five sinkers in the package. I'll make you one."

"Thanks." Jane boarded the bus. "Call you tomorrow."

"Okay. Good night. Thanks for the pizza." Daria waved as Jane boarded the bus, then turned her steps toward the Raft campus.

Disclaimer

"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty [gehardesty@yahoo.com]


	4. Chapter Four

Once Upon A Time at College

Chapter Four

By Galen Hardesty

~*~

Daria laid the book down in her lap, leaned over, and picked up the phone off her desk. "Hello," she said unoriginally.

"Hello, Daria," came a somewhat familiar-sounding voice, "This is Charles Ruttheimer."

"Chuck? Uh, hi. What are you doing these days?" she asked, surprised that he'd gotten her number, and thankful she hadn't said "Upchuck".

"Pardon me, Daria. I should have specified that I am Charles Ruttheimer the second."

"Chuck's father?" Daria struggled not to sound as surprised as she was. _Why in the world would Upchuck's never-seen and seldom-mentioned father call me? Has Upchuck gone missing? Is his dad calling every girl on his wish list looking for him? If he thinks Upchuck's in my dorm room, he's got another think coming._ "What can I do for you?"

"I would like to speak with you about a scholarship, and other matters of interest to you. It will likely take an hour or so. Would you have dinner with me? 

__

What the hell? Daria thought. _This call is getting stranger and stranger._

"Uh, no offense intended, Mister Ruttheimer, but even if you're who you say you are, I don't know you at all. I'm alone in a strange city, and I have to be careful," she replied, weighing the arguments for and against turning him down flat.

"None taken. You are wise to be careful. I like that. So allow me to suggest Sunset Bay. It's within easy walking distance of your dormitory, it's large, well lit, there'll be many patrons at this time of day, and the crab is excellent. You really need to hear what I have to say, Daria. It's to your benefit and your family's as well."

Daria was seriously alarmed now. _Why is he bringing my family into this? What **is** this, anyway? Besides which, I don't like the way he calls me Daria, and I **really** don't like the fact that he knows the physical location of my dorm. Admittedly, there could be an innocent explanation for that. I need more information._ "My family's benefit?"

"I'm sure they would appreciate never having to pay another cent for your college education, even if you decide to go for a doctorate?"

__

Damn, Daria thought,_ that's a big chunk of bait. How big a hook might he be hiding in it?_

His voice came again. "Daria, I only want to talk to you. I can appreciate your caution. I'm cautious too, including about what I say over unsecured phone lines. But my time is valuable."

__

Well, I have to eat, she thought. _Having dinner at Sunset Bay is about as safe as anything I've done since I came to Boston. Safer than walking across the campus, no doubt._

"All right, Mr. Ruttheimer, I'll have dinner with you. Is there a dress code at Sunset Bay?"

"Shirt and shoes is all they ask," he replied. "I have a reservation in half an hour, if that's all right with you."

~*~

After the waiter had left, Daria turned an inquiring look on Charles II. "So, Mister Ruttheimer, how's Chuck doing at Halyard?" She hoped she'd managed to keep the envy out of her voice. _Halyard. There was a name to conjure with, especially if it was on your diploma._

Charles sighed, folded his hands on the table, and stared down at them. "He got himself expelled. He patted some coed's rear and she reported him." He winced as he said this, and Daria found herself wincing as she heard it. 

__

The fool! To trade a Halyard education for a pat on some girl's butt? What the hell was he thinking? What the hell was he thinking **with?** And how must his father feel? "I hate to hear that. I thought he was smarter than that," she said.

"You and me both," he replied bitterly. "He is smarter, he just has a behavior problem of some sort. He'll be getting some counseling, to get that sorted out. And he'll be attending Raft beginning next quarter. Which brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about, Daria. I'd like to offer you a scholarship."

"Well you certainly have my full attention. Please, tell me more."

"All your tuition and fees will be paid for, and all your books and school supplies. You also get an apartment near the campus, and twenty dollars per diem, for food and incidentals."

Daria blinked. All expenses, plus six hundred dollars a month. Before she'd come to Boston, she'd have considered that princely. Even now, after she'd found out how high the cost of living was in the big city, she knew she could get by comfortably on less than that. But she wasn't going to gush all over him in gratitude. Not yet, anyway.

"Well, my friend Jane and I have plans to share an apartment, as soon as we find a decent one with north light."

He drew his cell phone from an inner pocket, selected a speed dial number. After a few seconds, he said, "Carl? Charles. Go ahead and take that single and double on the third floor across from campus. That'll work out fine. Message me when it's done."

He put the phone away and turned back to Daria. "I think you'll be pleased with this apartment. It's a little above the price range I gave Carl to work within, but it's a very nice two-bedroom right across the street from the Raft campus. It gets north light, which I think your friend Jane will like, and I'm told the landlord keeps the tenants quiet, so it's probably more conducive to studying than a dorm room."

Daria flashed back to that awful incident two days ago, in Jane's cramped, cold garret. North light was the only reason she'd moved into it. A fellow tenant had walked in unannounced while Daria had been posing nude for Jane. The first thing he'd done was whip out a sketchbook. Why she hadn't died of embarrassment on the spot, she still didn't know. This scholarship was sounding better and better all the time.

"Uh, that's very generous, Mr. Ruttheimer. What are the conditions of the scholarship? Do I have to maintain a straight A average?" Do public service?"

"Actually, Daria, the grades I'm interested in aren't yours, which I'm confident will remain excellent, but Chuck's. I'd like you to tutor him if he needs it, be sort of a peer counselor if called for, and generally do what you can to keep him out of trouble. He'll be in a one-bedroom down the hall from yours."

__

Oh, no, she thought._ Oh, say not so. Not Upchuck. Not right down the hall from me. Damn it!_

"You mean be his nanny, or his au pẻre? That sounds like a pretty big job. I might not have time left over for my studies."

"No, I didn't mean that. Just keep an eye on him and treat him like a friend, basically. He'll have a professional counselor available, but I'd like to have someone close who can see how things are going with him, give him good advice, and can alert me or someone else to a possible problem."

"Mister Ruttheimer, I'm really not qualified for this. I'm just a lowly freshman beating her brains out trying to break into one of the toughest, lowest paying professions there is. I don't know anything about guidance counseling."

"You're being modest, Daria. Chuck has a lot of respect for you. He looks up to you."

"Hmph. Looks up my… um, never mind. My interactions with Chuck have been mostly limited to ridiculing his pickup lines and threatening to kick him in a tender spot."

Ruttheimer smiled ruefully. "I think that's true of just about every female he's met for the past several years. But he says he admires your intellect, and that you're the only one who's ever made him want to excel academically."

Daria blinked, then remembered to close her mouth. "I… have to think he was… pulling your leg about that."

"There's quite a lot in his journal that corroborates it."

"You read his journal?" _Omigod! There's quite a lot in **Upchuck's** journal about **me? Eewww!**_

Ruttheimer looked embarrassed and spread his hands. "Desperate times, desperate measures. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him."

"And did you?"

"I don't know. It seems to be just a strong libido, but…" he spread his hands and shook his head in a puzzled manner.

"That's certainly part of it. I doubt my intellect is his primary area of interest."

Ruttheimer chuckled. "He's a teenage boy, Daria, and he's aware that you're a teenage girl. As I recall, when I was his age, I could seldom go ten seconds without thinking of sex, and neither could my friends. It sort of comes with the territory. But he is very impressed with your intellect."

"I'd say it was more like three seconds for Chuck, if it weren't for his grades," Daria mused.

"Oh, before I forget, about your breaking into writing? I may be able to help you there as well. Pan Press is one of my companies, you know." Seeing Daria's expression, he continued, "I know, a lot of their titles are kind of low-brow, and some of them are downright trashy, but Pan is consistently profitable, which is rare among publishing houses these days. And one of their imprints is Plato Books."

Daria registered surprise. "I didn't know that," she admitted.

"Good. Plato doesn't want it to get around. Pan Press has several respected imprints like that. Now, I won't order anyone to publish your work, but I will see to it that it gets read."

"I'm starting to realize what a big hurdle that is for a new author. Um, this is all very tempting, Mr. Ruttheimer, but I really don't want to be that closely… associated with Chuck for that long a time. I have a feeling it would turn out to be more of a distraction than it sounds like."

Ruttheimer sighed deeply and looked down at the pie crumbs on his dessert plate. "I was really hoping we wouldn't come to this part, Daria. I offered you everything I thought I could without risking distracting you from your studies. Is there anything else I could add that would persuade you to say yes?"

Daria pretended to carefully consider this. "I can't think of anything."

Ruttheimer bent and picked up a slim leather folio from the floor by his chair. Unzipping it, he removed some papers and laid them on the table. "Another of my companies, Ruttheimer Baby Buggy Bumpers, is involved in a lawsuit, and as things stand presently, will lose. No matter what the amount of the judgment turns out to be, the negative publicity will destroy the company."

Daria felt a knot begin to form in her stomach. "I've heard of it," she said. _From my mother, who's been working on the case for a couple of months now. What's Ruttheimer's angle here? To try to use me somehow to get my mother to throw the case? I need more information. _Suddenly, it seemed, she was playing for big stakes in a game she hadn't known she was in. 

"My name is on that company, and I know it to be a reputable, honorable company that puts out safe, fine quality products. My investigators have found that evidence has been altered or fabricated, exculpatory evidence has been hidden or destroyed, and witnesses have perjured themselves. We're about to introduce this evidence in court. 

Daria glanced at the papers, which had the look of photocopies. She wanted to hear everything he could be encouraged to tell her, whether or not it applied to her directly. "Go on," she said.

"Among the people we expect to be charged with fraud, perjury, evidence tampering, et cetera, for their involvement in this are three lawyers from Vitale, Davis, et al… Lothar and Eric Schrechter and Helen Morgendorffer."

"No!" Daria exclaimed angrily, "My mother wouldn't do a sleazy thing like that!"

He pushed the papers toward Daria. She picked them up and looked through them. Memos with Helen's signature. Receipts for documents with her signature. Transcripts of interviews she'd done with witnesses. "I don't see any damning evidence here," she said.

"In isolation, it's not obvious. But each of those documents represents an illegal act committed by your mother, and we can substantiate that. If you like, you can come to the offices of one of my lawyers tomorrow morning, and he will satisfy you as to the truth of three separate counts, any one of which will result in her disbarment and criminal conviction. But that will take a lot of time, time I personally do not have. 

This case is before a judge right now, Daria, and my legal team must present this evidence. What I'm offering you, and I wish I didn't have to, is this: Accept the scholarship offer, and the evidence against your mother is not presented with the rest. She won't be charged along with Lothar and Eric Schrecter. Additionally, some of my legal work will be directed to her, resulting in her being made a partner."

"Uh, what about Wolf Schrecter?"

"We don't currently have any evidence against Wolfibald Schrecter. If some turns up, it will be submitted. Why do you ask?" 

Daria put a hand to her head as she looked at the papers. "No reason, I guess. I'm just surprised he's not in on it."

Charles II noted the trapped expression on Daria's face, and felt a stab of self-loathing. "He may well be, we just haven't found anything yet to connect him. Look, Daria, Charles won't be your sole responsibility. I'll get him whatever counseling he needs, and his Raft student advisor has agreed to give him extra attention, for which she'll be well compensated. I'll be receiving reports on him from other sources as well as from you, and I'll step in personally if necessary. I'm going to make more time for him in any case. But you'll be the person closest to him, the person he can turn to most easily. I'm asking you to be his friend."

Daria sighed. "Mr. Ruttheimer, I kind of liked Chuck in high school. I sort of sympathized with him. But that was from a distance. The closer he got, the more his libido got to acting up, and the harder he was to like. Don't you think a guy would make a better friend for him?"

He smiled a bit. "I see what you're saying, Daria, and I certainly hope he makes some guy friends here, but you're the only former Lawndale High student at Raft. You're the only one he knows now."

Daria felt like an animal that has made many rounds of its trap, and tested all the bars, and found no way of escape. She couldn't think of anything to say.

"I can tell you're feeling shanghaied here, and I can't blame you, but let me assure you that I didn't set this up in any way. I didn't lure your mother into doing what she did." 

"I'll bet that damned Eric Schrecter did."

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised. But I didn't even know about her or him till day before yesterday. Her name came to my attention while I was trying to decide what to do about Chuck, and it reminded me that he'd mentioned you. I saw this as a way to benefit you and your family while helping my son, and I hope you see it the same way."

"Yes, I can see it from your perspective. In your shoes, I might do the same thing. If what you said about Mom is true, that is. I'll have to call her and talk to her. I can find out quicker that way than going to see your lawyer tomorrow."

He thought a minute. "I guess that's okay. Even if she does alert the Schrecters, there's not much they can do. We've already got the goods on them. Tell her not to tell them, though."

~*~

Back in her dorm room, Daria lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling, deep in thought. After some time, she rose, sat at her desk, and began covering a piece of paper with small groups of words and linking the groups with arrows and other symbols. After some marking-through and a change to a second piece of paper, she put down her pencil and studied her handiwork. Then she picked up her phone and punched a speed dial number.

Quinn picked it up on the first ring. "Hello?"

Daria spoke in a stuffy male, british-accented voice. "Quinn Morgendorffer? This is Charles, Prince of Wales. Will you marry me?"

"No way! I don't take hand-me-downs! Hi, Daria. How's Boston? Have you gotten a date yet?"

"As a matter of fact, I just got back from dinner with a multi-millionaire."

"Uh-huh. You must have struck out if you're back this early," Quinn replied.

"He wanted to put me in a lavish apartment and pay all my expenses, but I said no." 

"That I can almost believe," Quinn smirked, "You're still on track to becoming a classic cat lady."

"Is Mom handy?"

"She's trying to rip the phone out of my ear, so I guess so. 'Bye."

"Daria?"

"Hi, Mom, how've you been?"

"Hi, honey. I'm kind of frazzled. We're reaching a critical phase in the Buggy Bumpers case, and it's pretty hectic at work. I just got in. How are you?" Helen replied. 

"I'm good. Classics is interesting in spots, Psych is boring, but an easy A, Trig is repetitive, another easy A, but Creative Writing is fun. The professor is funny, and he appreciates my sense of humor. And I have some good news."

"What's that?"

"I got a scholarship."

"Oh, sweetie, that's wonderful! Tell me about it."

"It pays my tuition and fees, buys all my books and supplies, pays me twenty bucks per diem for food and incidentals, and I get an apartment just south of campus."

Three seconds of silence, then Helen said, "Oh Daria, that's fantastic! How in the world did you get a scholarship like that?"

"A guy called and asked me to come interview for it," Daria replied.

"Oh, come on! It couldn't have been that simple! Why did they offer it to you?"

"For inspiring others to excel academically." 

"Really? Oh, baby, I'm so proud of you!" Helen crowed. "But there must be some requirements you have to fulfill in order to keep it… what are they?" 

Daria picked up the mechanical pencil off the notebook in front of her. "I have to keep inspiring one particular student to excel academically. A student named Charles Ruttheimer."

There was a pause, then Helen said, "You mean that obnoxious boy from high school? The one Quinn used to call 'Upchuck'? Daria, I don't want you getting involved with vulgar people like that." 

"Mom, don't worry. Chuck isn't all that bad. He's more annoying than anything else. I can handle him."

"Daria, there are things about Chuck and… his family that you don't know, and it would take too long for me to explain. I'm afraid I'll have to forbid you to accept this arrangement for your own good. I'm sure a young woman as smart as you will be able to find a real scholarship or a good part-time job."

Daria sighed and shook her head slowly. She laid the pencil down on the notebook. It was true. "Mom, I understand your concern, and I know some of those things you think I don't know. I also know that if I don't take this job, you're facing evidence tampering and subornation of perjury charges related to the Ruttheimer Baby Buggy Bumpers case."

"What?! That's ridiculous! Who told you such a thing?"

"Charles Ruttheimer the second."

"Well, it's a lie! He's obviously trying to use you to get to me. Hoping to somehow force me to throw the case. That man is dangerous, Daria. Why were you even talking to him?" 

"He's the one who offered me the scholarship. He told me when I declined." 

"That bastard! Well, I'll tear him to shreds in court! He'll be sorry he messed with my family! I'll…"

"I don't think so, Mom. I've seen some of the evidence."

"What are you talking about?"

"What happened to the affidavit of Marjorie Forester? What happened to the QC analysis on Compound C, batch 3/12/00-4? You signed for both of those documents."

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. Daria continued, "Dad will suddenly be the sole breadwinner of the household. The trial will be nasty, and you'll have a lot of legal bills. I'm sure you have a much better idea of what those numbers will look like than I do. You'll eventually be disbarred and probably go to prison. I may be able to hang on here at Raft, but it will pretty much put an end to Quinn's hopes of a college education."

Sobs came over the phone. "Oh, God, what have I done? I've destroyed my family!" Helen groaned piteously.

Daria had never seen or heard her mother like this before; hopeless, her defenses in ruins. She felt her stomach knotting up.

"Eric coerced you into it, didn't he? What did he do, promise you that partnership again? Threaten to let you go if you didn't?"

Some indistinct sounds, then, "Both. H-he put the partnership offer in wr-writing this time."

"Well, maybe you can use it for a bookmark. It's no good for anything else, except maybe evidence." Daria did not mention the impending doom of Eric and his brother Lothar. She didn't trust Helen not to pass that along. "On the other hand, if I take this job, in addition to all expenses paid plus per diem and the apartment, that evidence against you goes away, and you really do become a partner. Charles the second steers some of his legal work to the firm through you, enough to give you a lot of clout. Life is better for all of us."

Helen sniffed. "Oh, Daria, you're just trying to make me feel better. You're such a good girl. I don't deserve you…" She sounded like she was fighting off another crying jag.

"You're my mother. You did all the hard work. If you don't deserve me, who does?" Daria said gently.

"B-but I've set you up to be blackmailed by that horrible man because of my greed and ambition," Helen half-wailed.

"Well, holding you for ransom would be a more accurate simile, but he's not actually doing anything illegal," Daria pointed out.

"You're right. I did more than enough of that to go around," Helen muttered bitterly.

"Mom, stop it. I'm not blaming you. All you wanted was to take care of your family. I blame those slimy Schrechter brothers."

Helen sniffled some more, then said, "Well, I blame me, too. I don't know where you got your moral fiber, Daria. You sure didn't get it from me."

Daria sighed again and groped for the right words to pull Helen out of her guilt funk. A little guilt, enough to keep her from repeating her mistake, was good, but Helen needed to quit beating herself up, deal with the situation, and move on. 

"Mom, look at the situation objectively. I would've had to get some sort of job anyway. This one is to help a classmate get through college. I could hardly find a better job than that. I get all my college expenses paid plus a per diem, and a nice two-bedroom apartment right across from the campus. Now Jane can stay with me. And Mr. Ruttheimer wants Chuck to get a doctorate, so I should be able to get at least a double doctorate in the same time frame. So I'm at least as well off now as if you'd gotten that partnership your way, which wasn't really a possibility. And so are you, Dad, and Quinn. This is obviously the way to go."

"Sure. That's because Ruttheimer very craftily set it up that way. I have a very bad feeling about this, Daria."

"I understand that, Mom. It's because a mistake you made is presenting me with a choice I'd rather not make. But how many times has a mistake of mine left you with a tough choice?"

"It's not the same thing. Not nearly." The self-loathing was still evident in Helen's voice.

"Mom, ever since before I was born, you've been making sacrifices for your family. Let me do one." Daria chuckled. "Some sacrifice. It's more like winning the lottery."

"I know you're trying to put a good face on it, darling, but it would be worse than that, and we both know it."

"Chuck's not that bad, Mom. He can be irritating, but I actually kind of like him. I used to enjoy swapping insults for his insulting compliments, and shooting down his lame pickup lines. He's bright. He can easily do the work. And I already have three years of experience dealing with him at school."

"Boys aren't always that easy to deal with, Daria, especially when you're alone with them."

"Yeah, I know. I'm not going to claim to be an expert here, but I am an adult now, and I've got to learn sometime. If I have a problem, I'll call you. Or Quinn." Daria hoped that might get a chuckle out of Helen.

"Daria, wait. Don't tell him anything yet. I'll think of a way out of this, and I'll call you tomorrow."

"Forget it, Mom. The only good way out is for me to take the job. I don't want you to do something stupid and self-sacrificing. We all need you. Getting yourself sent up the river isn't a viable option."

"Sweetie, I can't let that awful man force you into this!"

"Mom, he's not 'that awful man'. Well, he may be, but he isn't being awful to me, or even to you. He's a father, and he wants the best for his son. You can understand that. And he's found a way to do good to all of us while he's helping Chuck. There may be scholarships out there somewhere as good as this deal, but they're mighty few and far between. I'm going to do it."

"Daria, no! I forbid it!"

Daria sighed. "Mom, I know you're trying to protect me, and I love you, but you can't forbid it. I'm an adult now, and I've decided to do this. When you think through the consequences of any other course of action, you'll see I'm right. Look, I've got a book report and a short story to finish, so I have to go. Give my love to Dad and Quinn. 'Bye, Mom."

Daria disconnected, then stared at the phone in her hand for several minutes, deep in thought. Then she punched in another number. She heard one ring, then "hello?"

"This is Daria. Look, if I accept your, uh, offer, I can't be put in a position where Chuck thinks he's got me over a barrel. I won't have him expelled for patting my butt, but I can't have him knowing that. And I may slap him silly or stomp his toes as hard as I can, and I'll expect you to support me."

"Quite right. I'm trusting your judgment, and I'll support anything you do or say, within reason. I'm working on a set of guidelines for Chuck, and you'll have a copy of them. But he will not receive a copy of any guidelines I may give you."

"Good. I'll need to be able to get in touch with you in case of trouble." 

"I'm reachable at this number most of the time, but I sometimes go places beyond the reach of normal communications. I'll set up a number for you to call and either be connected to me or pass a message to me. You'll have highest access priority."

"Good. Now, I intend to do my best for you and Chuck, but if things somehow get to a point where I just can't do the job anymore, I want to be able to terminate the relationship with no repercussions for me or my family."

"That's reasonable. If you indeed do your best and it's just not working, we'll part ways amicably."

"Okay, I guess that's all… wait. Is that apartment furnished, and are the utilities paid?"

Daria heard him sigh. "I don't know. If not, put it on your expenses. Is there anything else?" 

"No, sir, that's all." 

"Very well. Good night, Daria."

"Good night." Daria disconnected, and laid the phone down on her desk. He'd sounded impatient with that last question, she thought, as if unaccustomed to thinking about such piddling details and trivial sums of money. She stared at the notes and diagrams on the notebook page in front of her for a minute, then tore it off and threw it in the trashcan.

Opening her Psychology textbook, she began reading the assignment, but it was all stuff she already knew. She soon found herself nodding off. Forcing herself back to semi-wakefulness, she undressed, put on her sleeping clothes, and climbed into bed.

Once in bed, though, sleep eluded her. She had traded several aggravating but known problems for one problem of unknown dimensions. Or had she traded a big chunk of her freedom for possibly illusory security? How good or bad a deal she'd made would become clear in time, she told herself, and anyway, it wasn't like she'd had much choice. Would Jane still want to share the apartment when she found out about Upchuck? _Dammit,_ she thought, _now I'll never get to sleep. I should have just gone to sleep at my desk, even if I got a kink in my neck and drooled on my Psych book._

Subvocalizing an imprecation, Daria turned on her headboard light, sat up, dragged the Psych book off the desk, and picked up reading where she'd left off. It worked like a charm. Soon she was sound asleep, and the thud of the book hitting the floor only partially woke her.

Disclaimer

"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty [gehardesty@yahoo.com]


	5. Chapter Five

Once Upon A Time At College

Chapter Five

~*~

Daria entered her dorm room, set her can of soda down on her desk, shucked off her backpack, and set it on the floor. Charlene was sprawled on her bed with a book propped on the pillow in front of her, her head bobbing to whatever music was coming out of her earphones. Daria picked up her phone. Checking her messages, she found one from Quinn and one from Jane. She keyed Quinn's message. 

"Daria, what did you do to Mom? She was really upset when she got off the phone with you last night, and she was still upset this morning! I'll call you again when I get back from school."

Daria checked her watch. That would be in about forty-five minutes if Quinn came straight home, no telling how long if she had a former fashion club meeting. Daria called up Jane's message. 

"Hey, Daria, you busy? Wanna go to the art museum or something? Call me."

Daria punched in Jane's speed-dial code. She heard the phone ring, and then a "Yo." 

"Hey, Jane. I found an apartment. You want to come look at it with me?" 

"Sure. What's it like?"

"Haven't seen it yet, but it's a two-bedroom third floor walkup just south of campus. It was described as 'nice' by someone other than the landlord. Go a stop past where you usually get off, two stops past where you caught it last night, and I'll meet you there." Daria checked her watch, then slid a bus schedule toward her across the desktop. "The next bus hits your stop in six minutes. Can you catch it?"

"No sweat. See ya." Jane hung up.

Daria slipped the phone into her jacket pocket, picked up her can of soda, and left. Charlene gave no sign of ever having been aware of her presence.

~*~

Jane stepped off the bus onto the strip of sad-looking brown grass. Daria rose from a bench, placed a bookmark in the worn paperback she'd been reading, and slipped it into her pocket. The bus hissed, groaned, sighed, made a rude noise in a low key, and rumbled away down the street. 

Jane waited for the noise to abate, then said, "Hey, amiga! Nice day for apartment hunting."

Daria looked around as if just now noticing the relatively warm, sunny afternoon. "Yeah, it's one of those fakeout days. How was your day at BFAC?"

"Art history was so-so, I finished my still life in Oils, but the New Media prof wants us to buy two sets of colored pencils, wax-based and water soluble. I think my old wax-base set will last another picture or two, but those watercolor pencil sets are pricey, especially at the campus store."

"I have a set you can borrow. Are thirty-six colors enough?"

"Plenty. Thanks, Daria. I'm surprised you have so many art supplies." 

"I just use them for details and special effects in my watercolor paintings, and once in a while for highlighting. I don't think I've had to sharpen any of them yet."

"I'll go easy on them. Quick work on the apartment. How'd you find it so fast?"

"Word of mouth. It came up in conversation."

Daria's pocket tweedled. She pulled out the phone and opened it. The call was from Quinn. Daria turned to Jane and said, "Hang back a little. I need to take this call." Jane gave her a questioning look, but stopped and let Daria get about twenty feet ahead. Daria pushed the button to connect. 

"So what's the matter with Mom?" came Quinn's tinny voice from the phone. 

Several witty replies sprung immediately to Daria's mind, but she reluctantly put them aside. "You need to ask her that."

"I did! She wouldn't tell me!"

"I'm not surprised. You should accept her decision. She'll tell you if she thinks you need to know."

"Dammit, Daria! You called here yesterday and told her something good about a scholarship, and then you told her something else, and now she's all torn up about it! What did you do? Tell me, or I'll come up there and jerk it out of you!" 

"Quinn, intimidation isn't your strong suit. Even if you could find Raft, you couldn't find me. And even if you found me, you couldn't jerk a ribbon out of my hair, and we both know it.

"Well, I'm the one who has to live with her. You owe me something!"

"No, I don't. Look, if I tell you what I can, you have to promise me that you won't mention any of it, even obliquely, to anyone under any circumstances, until such time as I tell you you can. Do you promise?"

"Damn. As if I had a choice. All right, I promise. What did you do?"

"I helped Mom with a problem."

"How totally vague. What problem, and what did you have to do with it? And if you helped her, why is she so upset?"

Daria carefully considered her answer. "She's upset because it was a serious problem, and she didn't know about it until I told her. I was able to take care of it, so it's not a problem anymore, but she's upset that I had to get involved."

"You took care of it? From there? How? What did you do?"

"Yes, I did. And what I did is my business."

"You still haven't told me what the problem was."

"And I'm not going to. That's Mom's business, to talk about or not as she sees fit."

"Dammit, Daria! I have a right to know!"

"No, Quinn, you don't. Talk to you later. Bye." Daria dropped the phone in her pocket, turned, and motioned to Jane.

Jane jogged up to where Daria waited. "Problem?" she asked.

"Nah. Well, a small family problem, but it's been taken care of. I was just trying to soothe Quinn's fevered brow, so the poor thing doesn't get a wrinkle." 

They were skirting the south end of the Raft campus, which was mostly given over to parking lots at this point. "So, this apartment has north light?" Jane asked.

"That's what I was told," Daria agreed. She looked across the street and read the street numbers on a couple of the buildings, then pointed to the first building on the next block. "That's it."

Jane looked where Daria was pointing. It was a three story red brick building with white trim, with the look of a townhouse. There was a picture window and a tall, narrow window on each floor of its front face, looking toward the Raft campus, and therefore north. Jane smiled.

As they continued toward the crosswalk, they saw by the brickwork above the picture windows that each had replaced two smaller windows with rounded tops. All the windows along the side of the building that faced the cross street looked to be original. The two crossed the street and approached the door.

Small, neatly trimmed shrubbery lined the front of the building. Two steps led up from the sidewalk to a small brick-paved porch with ornamental iron railings on either side. There was a welcome mat in front of the massive, dark-stained wooden door. The door had a large Rococo bronze handle instead of a knob, with a large bronze knocker in the same style and a small iron framed window. Daria tried the handle. It was locked. She found a doorbell button and used that rather than try the knocker.

As they waited on the porch, they took in the cast bronze mailbox doors set into the brick wall beside the door. There were nine of them in a three by three grid, each with a name and apartment number. Below the name Ward and 102 was the word 'manager'.

Taking it all in, Jane said, "Um, Daria, this place looks kind of…"

"Expensive?"

"Yeah."

They heard footsteps approaching the door. It opened to reveal a smiling fifty-ish woman in a floral print dress and apron. She was wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. "Hi, may I help you?" she greeted them.

Daria felt herself smiling back. "Hi. I'm Daria Morgendorffer and this is Jane Lane. We…"

"Oh yes, you'll be wanting the key to three oh one. Right this way."

She led them across a small foyer to a door marked 102 and opened it. From a board just inside, she took a ring with two keys and a tag, and handed it to Daria. "I'd come up and show you around, but I'm in the middle of something right now. I'll be up as soon as I can."

"Oh, don't bother. We'll stop by on the way out," Daria replied. 

"Well, all right, but call me if you need anything. I'm Mrs. Ward. The number's on the phone." Still smiling, she stepped back in apartment 102 and closed the door.

From the inside, the stairs were in the left front corner of the building. Jane sniffed the air as the two headed toward them.

"Mmm. Did I smell pie?"

"Cookies too, I think." Daria smiled wistfully as she started up the stairs. The smell took her back to special times—too few, too few—in her childhood, when her mother had stolen time from her work and more mundane housekeeping chores to bake something, and it had actually turned out right. Daria decided that, as soon as possible after moving in, she would bake a batch of cookies, and that one day, she would even bake some from scratch. Daria couldn't remember Helen ever having baked anything from scratch, although Helen claimed she had, back during her hippie period.

As they reached the second landing, Daria paused briefly to look out the tall, narrow window over the Raft campus. The colonial-style red brick buildings, some actually dating from colonial times, nestled in comfortable dignity among the stately oaks, elms, and cedars of the campus. The library, built of massive blocks of granite, contrasted yet harmonized with the others. It had been a gift from the local Masonic chapter in the 1820s, according to the inscription on the cornerstone. The many parking lots detracted from the stately effect, Daria thought, but hey, what could you do? You had to park. Daria could just see student parking lot 7D from here, but couldn't make out her car. Poor little thing. Daria seldom drove it other than back and forth to Lawndale, partly because it was so far to walk from her dorm (or anywhere else) to lot 7D, partly because, say what you would about the Boston metropolitan area, they did have a pretty good public transportation system.

Responding to Jane's gentle poke, Daria climbed the last flight of steps to the third floor. Its layout was the same as the other two floors, with apartments 301 and 303 on the right side of the central hallway, 301 in front and 303 in back, and apartment 302 and the stairs on the left. Daria noted in passing that the nameplate beneath the numerals 302 held a slip of paper on which was printed the name Eiffel. Her boots clumped across the oak floor to the door of apartment 301. She inserted the key and turned it.

The first thing Daria noticed was that the apartment was indeed furnished. A medium-sized sofa in some modern style met her eye, and as she walked in, a Danish modern coffee table in light mahogany, its top shaped like a stretched TV screen. There was a small recliner chair whose light blue upholstery didn't quite match that of the sofa, and an old-fashioned wooden rocker with calico cushions. In the corner closest to the stairwell was an entertainment center, empty save for an old medium-sized TV set.

"Dibbies on the rocker!" called Jane from behind her. She pushed past Daria, eagerly plunked herself in the rocker, and began rocking merrily away. 

"Fine. I get the reader," Daria said, and sat in the recliner against the East wall. A brass floor lamp to its left had three conical light fixtures on goosenecks. Daria tried out the reclining feature, and found that the back of the chair maintained a constant distance from the wall throughout its reclining range. She smiled contentedly. She'd wanted a comfy chair like this, and a reading lamp to go with it, for a long time. For some reason unknown to her, there wasn't a single comfortable chair in the entire Morgendorffer household.

Jane hopped out of the rocker to check out the picture window. She found the cord and drew back the curtains, to find that there was another set of gauzy white curtains behind them. Jane searched until she found another cord, and drew them back, too.

"This is excellent! Look how much light it lets in! and you won't have to worry about windowpeepers next door."

Daria had gone into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a breakfast bar. "Yeah, but Raft has an observatory with a nine-inch Clark refractor. We'll have to check to see that the dome is closed. This is a really nice kitchen for a student apartment. I was expecting more of a kitchenette."

Jane came into the kitchen. "Not bad, not bad at all. It's got plenty of cabinet space, thanks to these high ceilings. Too bad we can't reach those high shelves."

"That's what this chair is for. See, it's a stepladder, too."

Jane examined the indicated chair. "Cool. I'm not crazy about the breakfast bar, though. We'll be banging our knees on the cabinet all the time. And a table is good for more than just eating off of."

"Yeah, but it does save space. And I think there's a fold-up leaf on the living room side…" Daria walked around the end of the breakfast bar back into the living room. "See, this part is hinged. It swings up, and then this brace here fits into this socket to support it, so you can get your knees under it."

Jane squatted beside Daria to see what she was talking about. "Uh huh. I guess I can live with that. Let's check out the rest of the place."

The bedrooms and bath having passed inspection, the girls found themselves back in the living room. Daria looked at Jane. "Well, what do you think?"

Jane looked around again. "It's great! It's almost perfect! I don't even mind about it being farther from BFAC than Raft, since it's close to a bus stop. But decent apartments like this cost mucho dinero in this town. Can we afford it? What's my half of the vig gonna be?"

"Money's not a problem."

Jane stared at Daria for a second. "Did we slip into an alternate universe when I wasn't looking? How is money not a problem?"

"I get this apartment as part of my scholarship."

Jane gaped at Daria, who was smiling that Mona Lisa smile of hers. "Part of your scholarship? **_Part_** of your scholarship? Is this the 'I'm blackmailing a Kennedy' scholarship, or the 'I'm Donald Trump's snugglebunny' scholarship?"

Daria smirked. "A wee bit jealous, are we? It also pays my tuition, books, and expenses."

"Ghod!" Jane exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Whaddya have to do for a scholarship like that, maintain a five point oh average, captain the girls' basketball team, and sing and dance at fundraisers?"

"Not quite so bad. I have to keep an eye on another student, see that he's doing well, shepherd him along toward his sheepskin."

"Kind of a 'big sister' sort of thing? Hmm. That doesn't sound too bad. Whoever he is, he could hardly be as bad as, say, Upchuck. I mean, what are the odds?"

There was a thump as Daria's forehead hit the wall. She stood there, eyes closed, not moving, forehead probably making a little greasy mark. Jane stared at her friend, a horrible suspicion growing like crotch rot in her mind. 

"Daria," she asked, "who is this 'other student' that you have to babysit?" 

Daria slowly crossed the room and sank down in the recliner. "Upchuck."

"You're pulling my leg."

Staring at the floor, Daria shook her head.

Jane groped for words. After several seconds, she asked, "Why the hell did you agree to something like that?"

Still staring at the floor, Daria said, "I couldn't pass it up."

Jane waited for Daria to continue. Daria continued to stare at the floor. Jane finally blurted, "Well, come on, tell me!"

Daria remained silent for a couple of seconds, then began, "This scholarship... and it is officially a scholarship, although it was created for me, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred grand. Like I said, in addition to this apartment, it pays for my tuition, books, supplies, and all expenses. It's good as long as I can keep Chuck successfully matriculating, up until he gets a doctorate, maybe beyond."

Jane thought about that. "Woah. Daria, it sounds great, but maybe you should think about it..."

"It was a very limited time offer."

"Hmm. Well, if he was rushing you to decide, maybe that in itself is a reason to turn it down. Maybe there's something..."

"It was an offer I couldn't refuse."

Jane stared at Daria, looking for answers in her expression. "You mean, this guy literally made you 'An Offer You Couldn't Refuse?"

A brief angry look crossed Daria's face. "That's not what I meant. It's just too good an opportunity to pass up. It's not hard work. Basically, I just keep track of him, keep him on course, and be someone familiar he can talk to. And report to his dad periodically. I'd be crazy to pass it up, even if I do have to deal with Chuck."

Jane looked thoughtfully at the picture window and then back at Daria. "Well, at least you can come back here at the end of the day, kick back in this fine apartment and forget about him, right? You don't have to tell him where you live, do you?"

That brought a lopsided smile to Daria's face. "Oh, no, I won't have to. He'll be in the apartment next door."

Jane sank into the rocker and just stared at Daria for a minute. Charles Ruttheimer the third in the apartment next door. Knowing Daria as she did, Jane could tell Daria wasn't totally happy about the arrangement, and she was pretty sure there was something Daria wasn't telling her. But Jane could see that Daria had decided to do it, for whatever reason. She recalled some encounters with Chuck from high school days. Realistically, Chuck wasn't all that bad, but he certainly wasn't all that good, either.

Daria looked over at Jane. "I figure I should be able to rack up at least two doctorates in the amount of time it takes Chuck to get one. Like I said, I didn't have unlimited time to mull it over. Opportunity knocks but once. I answered. As for you, you can stay here free as long as I'm here. You don't have to interact with Chuck. You're free to make other arrangements, of course, but I hope you'll stay here."

"What? Daria, are you saying I should just move in here and pay nothing? I can't do that!"

"Well, then, you can, um, buy the pizza."

_______________________________________________

"Hmm. As expensive as pizza is in this town, I don't know if I can afford it. Oh, wait, I forgot. Yes I can, now that I can paint you naked to my heart's content. This is going to be great!"

"Oh, Jane, I couldn't possibly." Daria placed the back of her hand theatrically on her forehead. "I'm still so traumatized from that last time that I'll probably have to take tranquilizers to stand still for a driver's license photo."

"Yeah, right. Admit it, Daria. You love being an artist's model. It gives you that exotic, alluring, slightly wicked air that's been missing from your life. You love to walk across the campus and look at the other students and think, 'I model nude, and you don't know it.'" 

"Oh, that is so not true. I'm in constant dread that someone will recognize me from one of the paintings you've already done. Anyway, modeling nude could be seriously detrimental to my political aspirations."

"Ha! You have scruples, therefore you can't possibly have any political aspirations. Besides, if you'd had any, you'd never have posed that first time. Pull the other one." 

"Jane, I was just trying to help you raise enough money to stay in school. Now that you won't have to pay rent, that shouldn't be a problem."

"Yeah, right. That's why you insisted on an apartment with this huge north-facing picture window. Don't make me come over there and hug you."

"Don't you dare. I thought the window would be good for house plants." 

"Beep! Wrong! You want a south-facing window for that. You're busted, Morgendorffer."

A bit of a smile slipped past Daria's poker face. "I hate you."

Jane grinned. "Now that that's settled, let's eat. You wanna hit Mama Mimi's again?" 

"I was just thinking that since I'm on the clock as of today, I've got twenty bucks to spend for dinner. I know a place that has crab legs on special today. Feel like eating something that looks like a giant red spider?"

"Hey, I'm a bohemian art chick. There's hardly anything I won't do." 

Daria rose and headed for the door. Jane likewise rose, but turned and gave the rocker an affectionate pat before following Daria out.


	6. Chapter Six

Once Upon A Time at College

Chapter Six

~*~

As they started down the stairs to the first floor, they met a small elderly woman laden with groceries. She was obviously having difficulty, and one of the sacks was about to spill its contents onto the stairs. 

"Let me help you with that," Daria said, grabbing the top of the sack before it could spill.

"Oh, thank you, dear," the woman replied. "I don't believe I've seen you here before."

"I'm Daria, and this is Jane. We're moving into 301."

"Oh, then we're neighbors. I'm Mrs. Eiffel, and I live in apartment 302."

"Hi," said Jane. "Let me take that for you."

~*~

Twenty minutes later, Daria finally came within sight of the first floor at the bottom of the stairs. "Damn, she sure can talk! I think I can write her life story now."

"She's just lonely, Daria. There are a lot of old people like her. She's a widow, her friends are dead or in nursing homes, and her kids never visit. Whichever of us outlives the other is likely to end up like that."

"Gee, Jane, thanks for cheering me up," Daria groused as she knocked at the door of apartment 102.

"What I'm here for." 

Mrs. Ward opened the door. "Oh, hi, girls, is everything all right?"

"Just fine. Can we move in any time?"

"You certainly can. Here are your keys, Jane, and here's some information you'll be needing, like how we handle utilities, and who to call to get your cable started, and high speed internet if you want it, and rules about loud music and making holes in the walls and such. Do you have any questions?"

"How about parking?" Jane asked. 

"It's around back. The two spaces marked 301 are for you. Please don't park in anyone else's space, even if there's a car in yours. If that happens, come see Mister Ward or me, and we'll get it moved, one way or another."

"Great," said Daria, taking the offered brochure. "I don't suppose there's an elevator , is there?"

"I'm afraid not. If there's something you can't get upstairs by yourselves, Mister Ward will try to help you with it, but if it's too heavy for him, you'll have to find some strong young students to help. Bribing them with a beer usually works."

"Sounds like a plan," Jane smiled back at Mrs. Ward. "Be seeing you." 

"Wait a second." Mrs. Ward disappeared and came back with a plate of cookies. "Have a cookie, and do read the brochure."

~*~

"Make a note, Jane. These are the good old days." Sighing contentedly, Daria surveyed the carnage before her. Heaps of spiky Snow Crab exoskeleton, like the shattered armor of slain demon warriors, littered the battlefield that lay between her and Jane. She forked a small bite of pecan pie, hoping that it wouldn't be the one that caused her to explode like an overinflated parade float.

Jane patted her belly and gave forth an unladylike belch. "So noted. Tell me more about this strange babysitting job-slash-scholarship of yours that made this orgy of gluttony possible. First off, why does Upchuck need a babysitter? Is he worse now than he was in high school?"

"God, I hope not, but he did get booted out of Halyard for patting some girl's butt. He starts at Raft this next quarter. His dad wants me to be a friend and good influence."

"And spy."

"Well… yeah."

"So, when is Third going to be showing up here? Just in time for next quarter, or earlier?"

"Second hasn't told me yet. I assume that Chuck will go back home, he and his dad will spend some time together, and he'll see some sort of counselor while he's there. But that could be an unwarranted assumption. His dad said something about making more time for him, but he also said something about needing to get back to Kazakhstan." 

"Kazakhstan?!"

"He's involved in finagling a right-of-way for an oil pipeline."

"He owns an oil business?"

"Don't know. He owns a lot of companies. Pan Press is one. Ruttheimer Baby Buggy Bumpers is another."

"Hmm. Did he tell you anything to watch out for, or to be sure not to do?"

"Not yet. I'll add that to the list of stuff to ask him next time we talk, but I get the impression that Second doesn't know Third all that well."

Jane cracked a segment of crab leg and nibbled halfheartedly at the meat. "Mm. This is so good. I wish I had more room." 

Daria smiled. "Aren't you worried about losing your spot on the BFAC track team?" 

"Ha. I wish they had one. BFAC has hardly any athletic program."

"But you're still running, right?"

"I am now, but I didn't run much the last couple of months, because of the lousy weather. I think I put on a few pounds."

"Are your roomies in the garret complaining?"

Jane gave Daria a funny look, then smiled a little. "Not a bit. In fact, they cut my share of the rent in half, in exchange for doing half the modeling instead of a fourth."

"Hmm. Half the modeling. That would amount to about…what? Fifteen sessions a month?"

"About that," Jane said. It was actually somewhat more.

"A couple of hours per session?"

"Give or take."

"And they cut your rent from…?"

"A hundred a month to fifty."

Daria took another nibble of pecan pie. "So, you model an extra fifteen hours or so for fifty bucks. That's, uhh, three thirty-three an hour, or a buck eleven from each of them. Gee, Jane, that's very reasonable," she said, trying hard not to grin. "At those rates, I think I'll hire you myself."

"What? That can't be right!" Jane groped for a pencil, but found none.

Daria, still struggling to hold a poker face, handed her a pen. Jane began scribbling on a napkin, her expression growing darker and her face getting redder as she progressed. Then she stopped and stared at the napkin as if it were a cockroach that had just crawled onto her pie. "Those bastards!"

"Give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they didn't do the math either. Maybe one of them just made an offer that sounded good. Anyway, you did accept."

"Not everyone is a savant like you, Daria, or a polymath, or whatever you call yourself. I can't do that kind of math in my head."

Daria sighed sadly. "It's not your fault, Jane. When I was younger, I was surprised that everyone couldn't do it, but I realized that it's mainly because the schools just don't teach it. It's easy, once you know how."

Jane looked at Daria suspiciously. "So how did you do it?"

"Well, first, I doubled each number, to give myself easier numbers to work with. Thirty hours for a hundred bucks. That's still the same rate, see?"

"Yeah."

Then, since both numbers ended in a zero, I knocked a zero off both of them. Three hours for ten bucks. Once you get to there, you can see that it's three thirty-three an hour, without doing any more math."

"Huh. That is easy. But how'd you learn it, if not in school?"

"The basic techniques like that I worked out for myself, at times when I needed to figure something and didn't have a pencil and paper. Later, I found books in libraries that taught them, and other tricks I didn't know."

"Well, I'm gonna find one of those books, or get you to teach me. Damned if I'm gonna be taken advantage of like that again. I may be easy, but I'm damn sure not cheap!"

Daria smiled. "Come on, admit it, Jane. You love being an artist's model. It gives you that exotic, alluring, slightly wicked air. You love to walk across the campus and look at the other students and think, 'I model nude, and you don't know it.'"

Jane tried to look angry, but one corner of her mouth turned up a little. "I hate you."

Daria smiled. "What I'm here for. So, what shall we do now? Assuming we can get up and waddle out, that is."

Jane looked at her watch. "Well, there's time to move one of us into the apartment."

"Good idea. Do you want to go first, or do you want to spend one more night with your bunkies?"

"Do you want to snort this crab leg? Hell, yes, I want to go first!"

"Dooming me to a long, drawn-out goodbye scene with Charlene. Well, I'll go wash up and pay up. You can get the tip." 

~*~

Charles Ruttheimer the third gazed out the window. Off to the north, probably almost a hundred miles away but seeming much closer, a line of thunderstorms lit the north Atlantic with reddish purple flashes of lightning. From his vantage point, he could see hundreds of miles of the storm front, so there was a lightning bolt visible somewhere along it almost constantly. He wondered why the bolts didn't look bluish the way they did when seen from the ground, but the peculiar tinge was unmistakable. Charles grinned in the semi-darkness of the cabin. The gods on Mount Olympus never had this good a view. He made himself a promise that no matter how much he flew later in life, he'd always ask for a window seat.

This was the next to last, and the longest, leg of his journey home. They'd taken off from Frankfurt this morning and had breakfast over France, and the plane had outrun the dawn and caught up with last night. The cabin crew was starting to serve lunch now, and he'd eat dinner while still over the Atlantic. Then they'd land at BWI, and he'd get his bags, go through customs, and maybe be back in Lawndale in time to watch the same dawn for the second time. 

As Charles continued to watch the magnificent display of Nature's power, he could almost feel the minus sixty degree cold outside the plane's fuselage, just a few inches away. He listened to the muted hissing roar of the slipstream past the window, and felt as much as heard the screaming moan of the jet engines with their multiple harmonics. His father was always jumping on a jet and taking off on transcontinental or transoceanic trips. Charles wanted to do likewise some day. He wanted to repeat this experience--- frequently. 

Well… not the whole experience. Going to Kazakhstan with his father had sounded like the adventure of a lifetime, and it had been fascinating in spots. It was hands down the most different place he'd ever been, but it was a poor, dirty, benighted place, its cities blackened by many years of burning low-grade coal and clogged with trash that the people seemed unwilling to dispose of, as if afraid they might need it. The land was almost all flat desert, dotted seemingly at random with the black tents of nomads, occasional oil derricks, and what seemed to be abandoned military installations. What crops there were required irrigation, and what little road traffic he saw was mostly Mercedes Benzes, overloaded buses, and donkey-drawn wagons on old car wheels.

Charles had been enjoying the trip for the sheer novelty, and for the chance to spend time with his father, even if a lot of that time was spent cooling his heels in shabby waiting rooms, or sitting alone at a table sipping tchai while his father conferred with local functionaries or shady fixers two tables away. Or just gazing out the window of the company Mercedes as the drab Kazakh steppe flowed past and his father pored over reports and made notes on the other side of the back seat.

But then he'd been seated cross-legged on a cushion inside a black nomad tent woven of goat hair, trying his best to look both alert and unobtrusive while his father and some nomad sipped tchai and nibbled sweetmeats and apparently exchanged pleasantries. And then suddenly he'd been in the Land Rover, just him and his luggage and the driver, heading to the airport. And then he'd been on the tiniest jet airliner he'd ever seen, made by Fokker, no less, on a hop to the main airport at Almaty, and before he could say 'merhaba,' on a Turkish Airlines flight to Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, and another one to Frankfurt.

For the fiftieth time. Charles thought back to what his father had said- just "Get in the Land Rover," and his expression when he'd said it. He still couldn't decide whether that was his "Do exactly what I say with no questions" expression, or his "You're in big trouble, boy. Don't make it any worse." expression. Charles couldn't think of anything he'd done or failed to do to incur the latter expression, but that was no guarantee that his father was of a like opinion. 

On the other hand, maybe his father had suddenly sensed danger of some sort, and acted swiftly to get him out of harm's way. But if that were the case, why would he have stayed behind? Was he that confident of his ability to deal with the problem? Was danger that routine to him? Charles had once thought that his father might be a covert operative for the CIA or some more secret government agency. Recently he'd kind of gotten away from that theory, but he'd' never found any hard evidence either way. A pretty good circumstantial case could be made for it, though. His father frequently traveled all over the world, including rougher places than Kazakhstan.

Charles wished yet again that his dad had taken a few seconds to tell him what the situation was. He wished he'd taken more time before the trip to read up about the land and its people. It was a big country, bigger than any in Europe, over half as big as the continental U. S. Before he'd been whisked away, he'd learned that there were several tribes of nomads, and there were descendants of the Mongols who'd ruled Asia for most of the middle ages. Then there were the Kazakhs, or Cossacks, the largest ethnic group, and there were some Russian-descended people, and some Uzbeks in the southern part of the country. But he knew very little about what these people were like or how they got along with each other. And he had very little idea of what his father's present situation might be.

A growing ache in his neck forced him to turn from the window. He refocused his attention on the paperback he was holding. Charles was happy that new authors were continuing to write James Bond novels, and he liked the charming urbanity of the modern Bond, but there was a certain gritty lethality about the original Ian Fleming Bond that the new one seemed a bit short on. He tried to pick the story back up from where he'd left off.

The seat in front of him made a tweedly noise. Charles looked up and saw an LED blinking on a phone handset built into the seat back. It took him a few seconds to remove it and find the place to press to answer it. "Hello?"

It was, of course, his father. "Trip okay so far? Good," he began, not waiting for a reply. "Here are a few things I didn't get to tell you before you left." _Before you threw me out of the country, you mean. _"You have an appointment next Monday at one p.m. with a Doctor Millepieds at a place called Quiet Ivy. It's about thirty miles south of Lawndale. He knows you start at Raft next quarter and he'll work out a schedule with you. He's the best man in the area, so give him your full cooperation." 

"Father, are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right. Why wouldn't I be? Are you going to make that appointment?"

"Yes, sir." There'd be hell to pay if he didn't show up, Charles knew.

"When you land at BWI, a CIA officer may want to debrief you."

Charles's eyes opened wide and he stiffened in his seat. "What?" 

"Don't get excited. It's not unusual for them to question travelers returning from certain parts of the world, and Kazakhstan is in one of those parts. He or she might ask if the people seemed restless or hostile, or if you saw anything unusual, for instance."

"Pretty much everything I saw was unusual for me."

Charles Ruttheimer the second chuckled. "Then tell them that. Give them your full cooperation. The government considers a pipeline out of here that doesn't go through Iran or Russia to be in our national interest. The person you talk to may or may not know who you are, and what I'm working on over here. They might be interested in any number of other things, from crops to radioactive waste dumps. Just answer their questions as well as you can."

"Okay. I still wish we could have gone to Baikonyr Cosmodrome. I might have seen something interesting there." 

"Maybe next time. They just have a visitor's center and a short bus tour. Not nearly as interesting as Houston. Anyway, there are NASA people working there full time now, so the CIA won't be asking you about Baikonyr."

"Mm. So how are things going back there? How's old Ugly Buckaroo?"

"Ugluz Bukhoro. I managed to smooth his ruffled feathers, but it cost me a camel, three goats, and a case of mint jelly. You owe me."

"How so? I didn't ruffle his feathers."

Yes, you did. He saw you looking at his daughter."

"Huh? I didn't look at his daughter any more than I looked at his hookah or his rugs or his gilded camel saddle. I think he just saw a chance to gouge you. Anyway, there was nothing visible of her but her eyes and her fingers, and a couple of toes for a second."

"Aha. See, you were looking. Chuck, you have to be very sensitive to religious and cultural things like that when you're dealing with people so far out of the cultural mainstream. The very fact that they cover their women up so thoroughly should have told you to be extra careful not to stare at them."

"I didn't stare, dammit!" 

"By his definition you did, and when you're on his turf, that's the definition that counts. To us he may be a poor, primitive, ignorant nomad bossing a not-very-large extended family, living in tents on land no one else wants. But, practically speaking, he controls a sizeable stretch of the steppe out here, and bad things would happen to the pipeline if we put it through without his blessing. Understanding stuff like that and being able to deal with people like Ugluz is why the oil consortium is cutting me in for a piece of the action."

"That and the fact that you own the Black River Pipeline Telemetry company. Okay, let me know when you'll be back home, and I'll have the camel, the three goats, and the mint jelly waiting. I wonder what Mrs. Standish next door is going to say."

What might have been a chuckle came over the phone. "You'd better not. What you owe me for is having to help eat the roast goat."

"Ewwww!"

"It's not _too_ bad with mint jelly." 

"My eww stands. Seriously, dad, did I really mess up so bad that you had to send me home?"

What might have been a sigh came over the multi-satellite linkage. "Not really. Ugluz has sons, one about your age. He knows how boys are. The daughter was the problem. She's been of marriageable age, as they reckon it, for two or three years now, and I noticed the looks Ugluz and his wives were throwing back and forth. I decided it was best to get you out of there. You would have had to go back pretty soon anyway, because you have stuff to do back in the States before spring quarter starts at Raft."

"So… you'll take me with you on other trips?"

"As long as you're doing well at Raft and it doesn't interfere with your education, and the nature of the trip permits."

"Great! I really enjoyed the trip… what there was of it."

"I did too, son. Maybe we can complete the next one as planned. I can't guarantee that, though. Something always comes up. Now, a counselor will be arranged for you in Boston, and your Raft student advisor has agreed to spend extra time with you to help you with any school-related problems."

"That's nice."

"Something the matter?"

"No. It's just that…"

"You don't know anyone there?" 

"Yeah. I guess I'll meet people." _Yeah, like I did at Lawndale High. Making friends is not one of my major skills. _

"Well, there's one freshman at Raft whom you do know."

__

Huh? Someone I know got into Raft? Can't be Brad or Brett, they're doing their first year at Oakwood Community College, to save money. Not Jodie or Mac, I know where they're going. Who else do I know who could get into Raft? 

"I've arranged for this person to help you settle in to life at Raft, and to help you with your studies should you require it. I don't expect that you will, but Raft does have high academic standards."

__

Who the heck does Dad think can help **me** academically? There were only two students at Lawndale high with that kind of brainpower, Jodie and Daria. Can't be Jodie, and Daria would never…

"I understand she graduated with a 4.5 grade point average, and won an award for academic achievement."

__

She? Award? "Daria?!"

"Daria Morgendorffer, yes. I want to make it very clear that there will be no fanny patting or any other form of unwanted advance on your part toward Daria, her friend Jane, or for that matter, anyone else. Understood?"

__

Daria! The divine Miss M! The mega-feisty one! Goddess of Intellect, dark queen of my dreams! And she has somehow agreed to… help me? Oh, be still, my wildly beating heart! 

"Under**stood?**"

"Huh? Oh, yes, absolutely! How did you…"

"Believe me, it was **_not_** easy. Listen, I'm about to lose this uplink. Details of these arrangements will be emailed to you. Print it out and keep it with you. You know how to reach me if you need to. Stay out of trouble. Bye."

"Take care of yourself. Goodbye, Dad. Thanks!"

Charles replaced the handset and stared straight ahead of him with a look of blank, open-mouthed astonishment. It began to soak into his consciousness that somehow, in the last couple of minutes, his life had taken a sharp, skidding turn for the better. His father wasn't angry with him. And when he arrived at Raft, there would be a familiar face waiting. No, two. Jane Lane would be there, too. Ah, now he remembered. Jane was attending BFAC, which was also in Boston. But that wasn't important. Daria was there! Daria was attending Raft! He was attending Raft! They would attend Raft together! Charles's astonished expression slowly changed into a big silly grin, drawing a worried look from a flight attendant.


	7. Chapter Seven

Daria elbowed the door open, went over and deposited her bags on the counter, and pocketed her keys. Jane, entering behind her, dropped more purchases on the counter.

"Well, these should let us do some rudimentary cooking," Jane said as she removed pans and utensils from the bags.

Daria took a plastic dishpan from one of the bags, put it in the sink, and began putting the items in it. "I still wish we'd gotten that percolator." 

"There's a reason you seldom see those anymore, Daria. Sure, they make cute noises, but they make lousy coffee. By the time it's finished perking, the coffee's been boiled several times. It kills the best part of the flavor. Modern coffee makers just boil the water, not the coffee."

"I'll take your word for it. But we'll have to get a coffee maker somewhere unless you want to make it in a pan. I can testify that that method doesn't produce good coffee either, and it's messy."

"We'll get it when we get the skillet. That's another thing you don't want to buy from a thrift store, unless it's a cast-iron one."

Daria poured some bleach into the dishpan. "I feel a little uneasy about buying cooking utensils in a thrift store. Mom never did that." 

"Well, my mom sure did. Don't worry, anything made of stainless steel is fine. It lasts practically forever, and it's easy to clean and sterilize."

"We'll probably eat mostly frozen dinners or eat out, anyway. Cooking takes time, time I'd rather use for studying and writing. Speaking of which, let's not spend too much more time shopping today. I need to finish that short story for Creative Writing class."

"Oh, that reminds me. 'Short Story' got into the BFAC gallery."

Daria gave Jane a puzzled glance. "How's that again?"

"One of the paintings I did in Lawndale. The one of you at your desk, writing in your notebook."

"Oh," Daria said. _Great. I'm hanging naked in public again. Well, that one's pretty modest for a nude. Just a side-on view of me sitting. _"Is the gallery open to the public?" 

"Oh, yeah. It's pretty nice. They don't display a lot of stuff by freshmen, though, because the gallery has pretty high standards. There are other places on campus where they hang student work."

Daria finished filling the dishpan with hot water. "Well, congratulations on getting hung. Do they sell, or just display?"

"They sell. And representatives from the commercial galleries in the area come there to scout for new talent."

"Here's hoping you get discovered. Okay, everything's soaking in bleach water. Let's go get that coffeemaker."

As they descended the stairs, Daria reflected that she really hoped Jane would get discovered, and soon, so she could stop posing nude for her. Granted, Jane wasn't being a pain about it, and granted, the posing itself didn't bother her much anymore, but she still didn't like the idea of nude paintings of her on public display. If it helped Jane pay for college, though, and especially if it brought her to the attention of the powers that be in the art establishment, Daria would consider her discomfort to have been worth it. 

"Bus or drive?" Jane asked as they reached the first floor, and had to decide whether to go out the front door or the back. 

"Let's drive. It'll be quicker, we may want to grab dinner afterwards, and we might think of somewhere else we need to go."

~*~

A cloudy sky leaked gloomy light onto fields of stubble and dead weeds, and patches of leafless trees. The landscape matched Chuck's mood as he drove back towards Lawndale. They'd given him the same tests as others had before, and Dr. Millepieds had asked him more or less the same questions, and he'd answered as best he could, but he entertained no hope that they could help him. Chuck knew what his problem was, and it wasn't psychological, but he couldn't tell them that, any more than he could tell his father, or anyone else. There was only one person with whom he could discuss his problem openly, and she already knew all about it, and had done all she could, and it hadn't been enough.

She hadn't given up, though, and was still searching for an answer, so Chuck hadn't given up either. Aside from her, there was one other hope, and the analytical part of his mind told him it was a faint one, but he clung to it as to life itself. In the corner of his mind where hope dwelt, that particular hope had a face. He told himself not to think so narrowly, not to circumscribe the possibilities so straitly, yet the face remained, and he would not chase it off even if he could. It was the face of Daria Morgendorffer. 

~*~

Jane gritted her teeth and continued to count the rings. _Nine, ten, eleven… _

Then a pickup. "Hello?"

"Hi, Trent," Jane said sarcastically. "Gee, I hope I didn't wake you up."

Trent coughed. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. How're you doing, Janey?"

"I'm doing real well, Trent. How about you?"

"Okay, I guess."

Jane frowned. "How did that trip out to the coast go?"

Trent sighed. "There's nothing open out there right now, but I made a few contacts. I call them every so often, and I'm thinking of going back out there in another couple of months."

"How are you fixed for money, Trent?" 

"I'm doing all right. I work at the garage with Max now, and the band still manages to get together and play a gig every week or two. How much do you need? I don't have much, but I'll send you what I can."

"Aww, thanks, Trent. I'm okay for money, though. I just called to see how you were, and give you my new phone number, and tell you I miss you."

"I miss you too, Janey. I'm glad you moved out of that attic. Where are you now? In a dorm?"

"I just moved into an apartment with Daria. It's a real nice two-bedroom, only fifteen minutes by bus from BFAC."

"Sounds great, but can you afford it? Say, that gives me an idea. Do you think I could crash there for a day or three? It would give me a chance to look for gigs in Boston, and spend some time with you. The couch would be fine, or just a spot on the floor." 

"Uhh, I'd like that, Trent, but I'll have to ask Daria. It's her apartment, I'm staying here for free."

"Whoa. I didn't know Daria's folks had that kind of dough."

"They don't. The apartment is part of a killer scholarship Daria landed. All expenses paid, first cabin." 

"Double whoa. And she's letting you stay free? That's great, Janey. It really makes me feel better to know that you've got a friend like Daria. I better not come up, then. I don't want to mess it up for you."

"Oh, don't be silly. I'm sure she won't mind, if it's just for a few days. Anyway, it won't hurt to ask. Hang on." Jane put her hand over the phone mouthpiece. "Hey, Daria, would you mind if Trent came up to visit for a couple of days?"

Daria looked up from a volume of Dostoyevsky with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. "Huh?"


	8. Chapter Eight

Jane fought back an evil smirk. "Trent wants to come up and visit, and look for gigs in the area. Can he crash here?" 

Daria blinked, then blinked again. "Uh, sure, I guess so. He does know that we don't have a guest bedroom, right?"

"Oh, yeah. You know Trent. He can sleep anywhere." She lifted the phone back to her face. "Daria says sure. But the sofa here is more like a love seat. Way too short to sleep on. You'll need to bring a sleeping bag and an air mattress."

"I can do that. Tell Daria hello and thanks for me."

"Will do. Call and let us know when you're coming, so we have time to stock the refrigerator. "Bye, Trent." Jane listened for a few seconds, then hung up the phone with a smile. "Trent says hello and thanks. Still have a bit of a warm spot for the boy, eh, Daria? A bit of that old tingly, squishy feeling?"

Daria arched an eyebrow and glared at Jane over her book. "No, but I still have a bit of that old irritated, pissed off feeling about you continuing to needle me about that old crush. I can call him back and cancel that invitation real quick like, you know."

Jane held up her hands. "Just kidding, Daria. I know you're only acting out of the purest motives of friendship and good-deed-doing-ness."

"Damn right," Daria said, then looked thoughtful. "No, actually, I do have a bit of an ulterior motive. While Trent's here, you won't be bugging me to get naked and strike a pose."

"Hmmm…"

"'Cause if you do, I'll just throw you out in the snow and give him your room."

~*~

A hand appeared at Jane's partially open bedroom door and gripped the doorframe. Jane's touseled head appeared next, her other hand rubbing at her squinted-shut eyes. In her customary nightwear of tee shirt and loose shorts, she groped her way down the hallway to the kitchen. "What is that wonderful smell?" she croaked, then attempted to clear her throat. 

Daria, clad in a knee-length light blue tee shirt with a picture of Jonathan Swift on the front and faux fur monster-foot slippers, turned from the stove toward Jane. "Ah, the undead rise and walk the earth." She smiled. "Unless you mean the coffee, it's an omelet. But you can't have any till you wash the grave dirt from behind your ears."

"Mnrgh," Jane replied, and disappeared back up the hall. Smile fading, Daria returned to agitating the omelet with a spatula.

A few minutes later, Jane was eagerly attacking a plate full of omelet. "Mmm! This is undoubtedly the best omelet I've ever had! When did you learn to cook?"

"Watching my parents and then not doing likewise, I guess. Cooking was sort of a survival skill at Schloss Morgendorffer, but so was not letting the others know I could do it."

"Well, this is great! What's it called?" 

Daria shrugged. "I never named it."

"You mean it's a Daria original?" Jane began examining her omelet more closely. "Hmm…thin-sliced smoked sausage, red and green bell peppers… is that onion?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Any other kinds of pepper?"

"No."

"And tomato…and apparently all sorts of spices. Geez, you must have been up for an hour just washing and chopping ingredients."

"You know me better than that. The bell pepper and onion come sliced and frozen in a bag, and the tomato comes pre-diced in a can with oregano, garlic, and basil. I just added some seasoned salt and a tiny sprinkle of ground red pepper."

Jane shook her head in wonder. "Sheer genius."

"Oh, poo. I just throw together some stuff that I think might taste good together. Sometimes it does. Most of the rest of the time it does after a few adjustments."

"Well, I'm gonna lay in a bunch of those ingredients for when Trent comes up. If he doesn't marry you after he tastes this, I may propose myself."

Daria snorted. "I think you're just easily impressed by any kind of cooked food. And Trent better hurry, because he'll have competition pretty soon."

"Huh?" 

"I got an email this morning from Ruttheimer Global Conglomerated Limited. The heir apparent will arrive in two weeks."

Jane paused with a forkful of omelet halfway to her face. "Is Upchuck senior really that big?"

Daria took a sip of coffee before replying. "I really don't know, but some think he'd be in the Fortune 500 if not for some creative accounting."

Jane rose and carried her plate over to the sink and rinsed it. "Well, I'd better get a move on. Got a bus to catch, and I'll be loaded down this morning." She poured herself another mug of coffee.

"How so?"

"I'm taking 'Nude painting a Landscape' in to see if I can get it hung in the BFAC gallery. I've got a good feeling about this one, Daria."

Daria smiled. She liked the painting too, and even shared some of Jane's optimism about it. "Good luck with it. And good luck getting it there on the bus."

~*~

Jane sat in the gallery director's outer office, the fabric-sheathed painting beside her, and desultorily thumbed through the well-thumbed copy of Art Horizons magazine. Jane had never quite figured out who the target audience was for this magazine and others like it. Libraries had them, and places like this, and she occasionally saw them in the larger bookstores, but who needed the information they conveyed? That information mainly consisted of what works of what artists were currently being displayed in what galleries and museums. They seemed to be sort of like fashion magazines for the art intelligentsia, proclaiming who was in and who was out. Jane admired the fine, high-res photographs expensively printed on the heavy, glossy paper and wondered if a photo of a work of hers would ever grace the pages of a magazine like this. If one did, she might never know. They were much too expensive for her to buy regularly or subscribe to. With an exhalation that wasn't quite a sigh, Jane laid the magazine back on the coffee table and reached for a copy of Art In America.

The outer door opened and Ms. Wolfowitz strode in, carrying a clipboard and looking important and busy. Her blazer was just the right shade of brown to complement her tweed skirt, giving her an artsy and sophisticated, yet warm and somewhat approachable look, well suited to her position as the director of the BFAC art gallery. Her tortoiseshell-accented gold half-frame glasses hung from a matching tortoiseshell-beaded gold chain. Her glance took in Jane and her wrapped painting. "Good morning, Jane. You have another painting? Do let me see it."

Jane pulled her painting from its protective cloth cover, stood, and held it up. "I call it 'Nude Painting a Landscape.'"

"What an intriguing concept! A painting of the model painting. It pulls the viewer in by asking her to speculate on what the model's painting might look like, eh?" 

"Well, yes, if displayed alone, but what do you think of displaying _that _painting along with _this_ one?" Jane asked, pointing to the image of Daria's painting. Few details were apparent on Jane's canvas because of the angle at which it was viewed. 

Another woman entered the waiting room and stopped, waiting to speak to Ms. Wolfowitz, who looked at the painting, then at Jane. "What, you mean your model actually _was _painting while you painted her? Is she a BFAC student, too?"

"No, she goes to Raft. She's my friend from high school. But yes, she was painting while she was posing. I have a copy of her painting here." Jane laid her painting down on the coffee table and picked up the portfolio from beside her chair. Opening it, she pulled out a copy of Daria's watercolor. "It's being matted and framed, but it should be ready by now."

Ms. Wolfowitz took the photocopy and studied it. The other woman stepped closer and looked at it too. "Oh, this is just the sort of thing I look for for the magazine. Something different, something with a twist. May I photograph them?" she asked.

Ms. Wolfowitz introduced her. "Jane, this is Anita Goodman. She's a contributing editor for Art Horizons magazine."

"Yes, you certainly may! I'm Jane Lane, pleased to meetcha!"

"I know a little alcove at D'Uberville Gallery that would be perfect to photograph these," Anita said. She handed Jane a card. "Call me and let me know when you can come and bring both paintings. Ask your friend if she can come, too. Most of our photos only show the artwork, but since she's the model for one and the artist of the other, the editor will want to at least look at a shot with her in it. And you, too, of course, Jane." 

~*~

Jane sat down with her second plate of curiously shaped, more-or less bite-sized delectables. "Can you believe it? Goodman hadn't even started shooting yet, and this guy walks up and wants to buy them both! And the gallery owner starts negotiating the price like we were two of her most illustrious artists!"

Daria poured herself another cup of hot Chinese restaurant tea. She and Jane were treating themselves to exploring the Dim Sum bar of a quaint little Chinese restaurant they'd found near the D'Uberville Art Gallery. It was in the nature of a celebration. Jane's oil, Nude Painting a Landscape, and Daria's watercolor landscape, hung temporarily just to be photographed for Art Horizons magazine, had been sold on the spot, for sums that had left Daria dazed and Jane ecstatic. "I'd say we're probably fairly well placed on her good list now, even if we were total strangers this morning. How often do you think she makes a sale that fast? I'll bet she'll hang anything you bring her now."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to lose her card, and I hope you don't either, Daria. Even if you don't become an artist, you may want to write about it. And this is two valuable contacts I have in the art world now that I didn't have last week, and I have you to thank for it."

"Oh, pish. You're the artist. I'm just the model."

"Bull cookies. You're both, and you're very good at both, and that's what caught those peoples' attention."

Author's note: I'm updating The Citadel Of Lou Manchu again, starting with Chapter 3. It won't appear on page one till I get to chapter 10, though. Meanwhile, the easiest way to find it is through my author page. –LS

Disclaimer

"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a 

division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim 

copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty gehardesty@yahoo.com


	9. Chapter Nine

Once Upon A Time At College  
by Galen Hardesty

Jane spread the plastic dropcloth and aligned her easel with the chalk marks on the carpet. She placed the nearly-completed painting on the easel. Daria, wearing her white terrycloth bathrobe, covered the coffee table with a smaller sheet of plastic, then set out Jane's oils and turps on it, followed by a vase holding the brushes she would use. Jane freshened the colors on her palette as Daria walked over to the window, where there was another set of chalk marks on the carpet, and pulled the cord to open the curtains. Daylight streamed through the gauzy curtains that remained closed.

"This is great! The ideal model, the perfect place to paint, and no one to interrupt. Do you think we'll have time to finish a couple more before Upchuck shows up?"

"Don't keep calling him Upchuck, Jane. He'll be here pretty soon and..." Daria parted the gauze curtains and peered down toward the street. "Correction. He's here now." She hurried to her bedroom to dress.

"Put on something slinky!" Jane called after her. Then she put her palette down and began capping her paint tubes. "Dammit!" she muttered.

Daria reached the first floor just as Mrs. Ward was giving Chuck his keys. She wore jeans and a pullover sweater woven in a geometric pattern of mostly dark green and blue. "Hi, Chuck," she said.

"Daria! A vision of loveliness, as ever!" he exclaimed, and threw out his arms to embrace her.

Daria quickly planted a hand on his chest and shoved him back. His expression registered surprise and disappointment. "Hey, what's the matter? I'm just happy to see you."

"I'm… not displeased to see you, but that doesn't call for a passionate embrace."

Mrs. Ward was regarding the two of them warily, as if assessing whether they represented a possibility of a disturbance.

"I just wanted to give you a friendly hug," said Chuck, sounding a bit hurt.

Daria bit off a sarcastic retort and instead asked, "Where's your car?"

"Out in front."

"Take it around back, quickly, and park in space 302. The cops around here will ticket you in a New York minute," said Daria, motioning which way he should go. "I'll meet you there."

After he'd gone out the door, Mrs. Ward asked, "Problem?"

Daria turned her head toward the older woman. "No. I'm just not a hugger," she replied, and headed down the hall to the back entrance.

Chuck was getting out of an old Cadillac convertible when Daria reached the parking lot. The cow horns were gone from the hood, and some other aftermarket ornamentation was missing, but Daria recognized it as the former Love Machine. "You still have this thing?"

Chuck grinned. "It's a classic. It'll be an antique before too long. I'm restoring it, a little at a time. I drove it up here because it's got tons of room. Listen, Daria, the last thing in the world I'd want to do is offend you. If I did, I'm truly sorry."

"You didn't offend me, Chuck. But there's something about me you need to know. I don't like to be touched. I don't like to be hugged, kissed, patted, poked, pinched, or groped. Not just by you. By anyone, even my parents. I sometimes put up with it, but I very seldom like it."

"Oh. I didn't know."

"Of course not. That's why I told you. Now, what can I carry upstairs?"

Chuck opened the trunk and was handing Daria some pillows and blankets when Jane arrived. "Miss Lane! What a pleasant surprise! Do you also have an apartment here, or are you just visiting?"

"You didn't know? Daria and I are living together," Jane smirked, making eyes at Daria.

Several expressions chased each other across Chuck's face. Jane's smirk widened. Daria rolled her eyes. "It's a two bedroom apartment," she said.

"Spoilsport!" Jane pouted.

Chuck looked around the mild disarray of his apartment. "Well, there are a lot of things I didn't think to bring, and a lot of other things that I'd have needed to buy anyway, but nothing that can't wait till tomorrow, thanks to the kind-hearted generosity of you two lovely ladies."

"A bar of soap and a roll of tissue. We're a couple of Mother Theresas, all right," Daria observed.

"You made me feel welcome in a strange city, and you even carried some of my stuff up the stairs. I am eternally in your debt," Chuck replied, making an exaggerated bow.

Jane cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Daria. "How about you just buy us dinner and we call it even?"

"A capital idea! I'm famished! With what exotic delicacies may I delight your discerning palates?"

"Chuck…" Daria shook her head. "You're not on stage. Give it a rest."

Chuck looked from Daria to Jane and back. "Trying too hard?"

Daria nodded, holding her thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. "A little."

"Well, then… where would you like to eat?"

"Well, there's a good cheap pizza place nearby…" Jane began, then stopped when she saw a brief pained expression cross Chuck's face. "What?"

"Nothing," he replied, a bit too quickly. If pizza you want, pizza you shall have!"

Daria hiked an eyebrow. "I saw that look too, Chuck. Do you have an ulcer or something?"

"Nothing like that. It's just that, since I was home alone, I ate at Pizza king most of the last two weeks, hoping I'd see someone I know."

"Oh. And did you?"

"Well, I saw your lovely sister and her fashionable friends, and some others of nodding acquaintance, but no one wanted to talk to me but Kevin. Poor guy, he's worse off than I am. Brittany and the other cheerleaders he knew are off to Great Prairie State, as are several of the football squad he used to play with. He's not eligible to play this year, you know. So all he has to talk about are his days of faded glory, when he was the QB and Brittany was his girl. And since he's no longer the QB, no one feels obligated to talk to him. It's enough to make the statue of the unknown guy weep."

"Yeah, that's sad." Daria looked up and said, "So, you're burnt out on pizza for a while. Hmm, I heard of a Turkish place around here that has borscht and kebab, and I hear they serve a mean roast goat."

Chuck smiled a pained smile. "Ah, la belle dame sans merci. You know I just returned from Kazakhstan, and somehow you also know that those are the only three food items Kazakhs can cook. Such cruelty in one so young."

Daria smiled. "Okay, I was kidding. There's a Thai restaurant not too far away that we haven't been to yet."

Chuck's smile brightened. "I love Thai food. I've been hoping for years that Lawndale would get a Thai restaurant. What say you, Miss Lane?"

"I'll try anything once, with the possible exception of sheep eyeballs. I'm game."

"Excellent! Lead on, Miss Morgendorffer."

Soon the three were cruising down the boulevard in Chuck's barge of a Cadillac. Jane asked, "Do you know how spicy the dishes are at this restaurant?"

"I hear they have three gradations- warm, hot, and 'die screaming, running dog yankee', Daria replied.

Chuck grinned. "Ah, I like it already. What's the name of the place?"

Daria smiled slightly. "Thai Yi Yippie."

Jane took another spoonful of Tom Yum Goong and laid her spoon down as the tall glasses of Thai Tea arrived. Copying Daria, she stirred the whipped cream topping into the tea with her iced tea spoon, then stuck her straw into it and took a sip. She broke into a big smile. " Oh, I like this! What's that exotic flavor?" she asked.

"It's Oriental Star Anise. They brew some pods of it in with the tea leaves," Chuck said.

Jane moved her soup bowl off her plate as the waitress brought the Spring Rolls and the Yam Thalay, a spicy seafood salad. "So, Chuck, how was your trip to Kazakhstan?"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want to live there, and it's not a nice place to visit, either. I wish I could've spent more time with my dad, but other than that, I was glad to leave. It's mostly arid plains and deserts, and the Soviets managed to mess it up even worse while they controlled it. Severe water mismanagement, industrial pollution, radioactive waste all over…"

"Ew. What about the people?"

"Interesting. There were several different ethnic groups. A lot of them looked like they were hoping that our presence was a good sign, but a lot of them were suspicious of us and acted like they were just interested in separating us from our money."

"That sounds scary," Daria observed.

"It was. I felt kind of like Davy Crockett deep in Indian territory."

"Ooh, what's this coming now?" Jane asked.

Chuck smiled. "That would be the Tong Todd- that's fried squash in sweet and sour cucumber sauce- and the Chicken Satay."

Daria sniffed appreciatively at the Chicken Satay. It looked scrumptious, and its aroma told of peanut sauce made with exotic spices. "It smells great, but we'll never be able to eat all of this."

"That's okay, they'll box up the leftovers. As long as someone pays for it, they're happy, and it'll stave off the day when I have to go back to eating my own cooking."

They all made sure to try every dish, and talked about the unusual variety of fresh herbs used in Thai cooking, and then of what Daria and Jane had been doing in Boston. Chuck told them something about what his father was doing in Kazakhstan. Then, as they were approaching satiety, he asked a question he'd been waiting to ask.

"Uh, I wasn't told, Daria, but may I assume that it's no coincidence that our apartments are adjacent?"

Daria took a thoughtful sip of Thai Tea. "No, it's no coincidence. Your father had someone hunt up some apartments, and he chose those two. He's supplying that one to me in return for my helping you adjust to life at Raft, as needed. I consider that very generous of him, although of course it remains to be seen exactly what the job will entail. How pleasant or unpleasant it will be, and consequently whether I continue with the arrangement, is entirely up to you." She wished that last part was true.

"Well, I'll certainly do all in my power to make it a pleasant and mutually beneficial arrangement," said Chuck. "That's pretty much what he told me, that you'd agreed to "help" me, no specifics given. I was hoping you might fill in some details."

"I can't at present. I'm assuming that 'help' doesn't include doing your coursework for you, although it might include some study help and tutoring. I'll tell you the least harrowing way to get registered, and I'll tell you what little I know about good and bad professors, that sort of thing. And, uh, if you just want to talk, I can do that. Oh, I should point out that Jane has no arrangement with your father, only I do. I've asked her not to kill you without consulting me first, though, and she says she'll try."

"I can't guarantee anything, though," Jane put in.

"Good night ladies." Chuck waved a last time as the door of apartment 301 closed on Jane and Daria, and then turned toward the hallway to 303, still smiling. He happened to catch a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye. The door to apartment 302 silently closed, and Chuck had an impression of a staring eye and part of a thin face at the crack. He hesitated a second, then, shrugging, headed on down the short hallway that led only to his apartment.

Letting himself in, he looked around at his belongings placed randomly on the floor in armload-sized clusters. It was only messy in a relative way. He didn't have enough stuff to make a real mess. Charles settled into an armchair and smiled. Here he was in Boston, a huge city in which he only knew two people. But those two were in an apartment right next door, and he'd just had a very pleasant dinner with them. His smile widened a little. A better than average day, he thought, much better than average.

Chuck's thoughts turned to his father, as they often did at night when he was alone. He wondered where his father was, and what he might be doing. Chuck picked up his shortwave radio off the floor and tuned it to the BBC. There was something about an Egypt-based Islamic telephone hotline, and some senior Chinese official urging international talks over the U.S. missile defense system. It reminded him of something he'd read in the bible about the jews repairing the walls of Jerusalem, and some other guys wanting them to stop the work and talk about it.

There was fighting in Waziristan and Sri Lanka, but no news out of Kazakhstan. Well, no news is good news, he supposed. His father might not even still be in Kazakhstan. The man flitted across the globe like an asteroid shadow. Chuck turned off the radio and sat there. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, Chuck believed he'd be all right. He always had been before. Anyway, there wasn't a thing Chuck could do about it.

Chuck himself, however, was not all right. Things were looking up for him, granted, but not all things. He had a problem, a serious problem, and his time for solving it was running out. Not that there was anything he could do directly to solve it. The woman who'd gotten him into this fix was doing her best to get him out, but with limited success so far. Well, that wasn't really fair. He'd brought it on himself, in a way.

Faintly from the next apartment there came the sounds of female voices, and the occasional footfall or closing of a drawer or cabinet door. Old memories came back to him, memories of the sounds of his mother puttering around in the kitchen. A tear leaked out of the corner of his eye and ran down his cheek, but Chuck continued to smile.

There was a possibility that another woman could save him. Too bad he had no idea who this other woman might be. It could be some girl he'd meet at Raft, or it could be Daria, or Jane, or some woman he'd meet by chance in a store or on the street. Chuck just hoped he'd meet her soon. If he didn't, he wouldn't be graduating from Raft. He might not graduate from freshman to sophomore. But there was nothing he could do about it. Or… was there?

Charles Ruttheimer the third sat alone in the silence of his apartment, and thought.

"Okay, that's got it. Except for some shading on the curtains, 'Nude Watering Cactus' is complete." Daria put down the juice glass half full of water, gave her arm a shake, and picked up her bathrobe. "At last!" She slipped on the robe and walked over to where Jane was studying the canvas. "I thought you were never going to get that glass of water right."

"Reflection and refraction are hard, Daria, especially if they're both happening at once."

"It's easy, once you look at it as a ray tracing exercise." Daria studied the image of the glass critically. "I showed you how. Thought you had it."

Jane looked at her friend, and shook her head. "You actually do ray tracing problems in your head, and think it's easy. Sometimes you scare the hell out of me, Morgendorffer. When your species takes over, I hope you'll remember me kindly and have mercy on us poor _homo sapiens_."

That drew a small smile from Daria. "You don't actually do math. You visualize it, like a bank shot in pool. And I'd be more inclined to think kindly of you if you hadn't picked the most phallic-looking cactus in the whole store for a prop."

"I chose it because it had that beautiful blossom. Anyway, a nude needs a certain element of suggested sexual tension. This is nowhere near as blatant as Dali's 'The Autosodomization of Chastity'."

"Nothing's that blatant, till you get to Mapplethorpe. And that's a paper flower, stuck on with a thorn."

"What?" Jane walked over to the window and touched the cactus blossom. "Dirty rotten conniving gardeners! Ya can't trust any of 'em!" She turned back to Daria. "Well, I need to start planning out the next one, so we can start on it before you have to start shepherding Upch- er, Chuck around getting him registered. Got any ideas?"

"How about "Nude wearing a sweatsuit?" Daria suggested. Jane gave her a 'yeah, right' look but said nothing.

"Okay. "Nude knitting a sweater." I'll be sitting in this recliner, holding the sweater up to look at it. It'll be almost finished, and…" Jane's look hadn't changed. "Hey, you'll be able to see my nude shoulders, and some thigh…"

Jane shook her head. "Doing something is good, but the paintings that were best received were the ones where you're doing something intellectual or creative. I really think you've finally managed to make brains sexy."

Daria thought about that, and dismissed it as highly improbable. "So, something like 'Nude Taking an IQ Test?'"

"Hmm, maybe if you were in a classroom filled with students… should they be clothed, or nude too? Mmm, no, I don't think so. Compositional problems."

"Well, I've got this article to write. How about 'Nude Writing an Article for the School Paper?' I'd be typing on my laptop…"

"I dunno. Sounds like you'd be all hunched over."

Daria gave her a sardonic look. "Okay, I've got it. 'Nude Shooting a Layout of the Artist.' I'll be standing, taking photos. Beside your painting, we'll hang a collage of my photos of you painting me, and you'll be nude, too. The artsygentsia will love it! It's guaranteed to make all the art magazines."

"Hmmm… let me think about it."

"I was **_kidding_**."

"I kind of thought so, but they probably _would_ love it. You know it'd be more popular than meat sculpture, which is the latest thing."

"Meat sculpture! Gaah! Doesn't it rot?"

"Sure. That's part of the idea; to illustrate that everything is ephemeral, everything perishes."

Daria sat down in her recliner. "More 'concept art?' From what I've seen, concept art is what you get when a would-be artist gets an idea, but is too lazy and lacks the talent to execute it properly."

Jane considered this. "You'd make a wicked art critic, Daria. How many times did you read 'The Emperor's New Clothes', again?"

"Just once, but I understood it. Jane, I sincerely hope you realize that it's just one step from what I facetiously suggested to setting up webcams in here to show us doing it live on the Internet."

Jane shook her head, smirking. "Yep, a real slasher of an art critic. They'd love you at parties."

The phone rang. Daria stepped over to the counter to get it. "Hello?"

"Hello, Daria."

"Oh, hi, Mom. How are you doing?"

"Very well, Daria, and you?"

"I'm doing great. How are things at work? Are you a partner yet?"

"De facto. I'm getting the money, and I've got Eric's caseload, as well as my own. But it's not official yet. The surviving partners are afraid I'll go the way of Lothar and Eric, and I can't tell them why that's not going to happen. So I guess I'll just have to wait." There was a brief pause, then Helen asked, "Daria, is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"Uhhh…" Alarm bells went off in Daria's head. This meant one of two things, she knew. Helen either knew or strongly suspected something, something she thought Daria should have already told her. And she had no idea what that might be. "I may be getting on The Castaway."

"What?"

"It's the Raft paper. The editor liked some of the letters I've sent in and asked me to do an article. So I'm writing one that advocates changing from two-person dorm rooms to single occupancy. I have an idea for another one about the parking problem. It'll take a lot of research, but I know they'll be interested in it. If they take me, I'll be the first freshman on staff since 1978."

Helen scribbled "Call Rita. Brag!" on the notepad by the phone. "That's wonderful, Daria! But is there anything else?"

"Let's see… Chuck showed up yesterday afternoon. We helped him get moved in and he took us to dinner. As soon as registration opens, I'll get him started on that."

"Daria, is that young man giving you any trouble?"

"Ha. Just the opposite. He's so eager to please he makes me want to run away and hide. He reminds me of a puppy at the dog pound."

"Hm. I guess it could be worse. But don't let your guard down, Daria. Now are you sure there isn't anything else you want to tell me?"

Daria's expression of exasperation made Jane drop what she was doing and come over, a look of anticipation on her face. "Um, I can't think of… oh there is one other thing. You know how I used to be kind of… a virgin?"

Jane clearly heard the gasp from the phone. Daria grinned wickedly. "Well, I kind of… still am."

"**Daria**! Don't **_do_** that!"

"Well, that's the third time you've asked that same question, and I'm out of stuff to tell you!" Daria kicked ineffectually at Jane, who was rolling around on the floor, convulsed with silent laughter. "Whatever it is, just hit me with it."

Helen exhaled volubly. "I hope you have at least four daughters, Daria." She hesitated for a second, then said, "I had to run some documents up to Eric's lawyer today. William Dewey, of Dewey, Cheatum, & Howe, in Baltimore. When I entered Mr. Dewey's office, what do you suppose I saw?"

Daria was really baffled now. "Uh, law books?"

"I saw a painting of you, Daria, painting a picture. Naked."

Daria realized that the lengthening awkward silence following her mother's revelation was due to her failure to say something. "Oh. That. Uh… hey, Mom, Jane sold a painting. I sold one, too."

"Do tell. And when were you planning to tell your family this… 'good news'?"

Daria checked her phone's earpiece to see if frost was actually forming on it. "Come on, Mom. This just happened a couple of days ago, and I'm still pinching myself over it. You saw that little landscape. An eleven by fifteen piece of paper that took me a couple of hours to finish, and that I only did because Jane wanted me to be painting something, and it wasn't really even on sale, it was just being photographed at the gallery, and…"

"Photographed? Gallery?"

"Oh, yeah. Um, there's a possibility that Jane's painting, and maybe my painting too, may appear in a future issue of Art Horizons magazine. And there's a slight possibility that there may be a photo of Jane and me standing next to our paintings."

The silence this time was technically for lack of Helen's reply, but Daria broke it. "The editor told Jane she knew a spot at the D'Uberville Gallery that would be just right to photograph them, so we were getting set up there, and this guy just walks up and looks for a minute and then wants to buy both of them on the spot. And before we know it, the gallery owner has sold Jane's painting for five thousand and mine for half that."

Helen wrote down these dollar figures, then she underscored 'Brag!' on the notepad several times, and began drawing stars in front of and behind it. "Editor?"

"Anita Goodman. She's a contributing editor to Art Horizons. She saw our paintings at the BFAC galleryand wanted to photograph them, and the owner of the D'Uberville gallery is a friend of hers, so…"

Helen stopped drawing a sunburst border around the figure $2500 and scribbled 'Anita Goodman edit Art Horzn'. "Goodness, Daria, it sounds to me like you're getting pretty deeply involved in the Art scene up there. You are going to keep up your studies at Raft, aren't you?"

"Oh, sure. I'm not a professional-grade artist, and probably never will be. Becoming a writer is going to be hard enough without trying to pursue painting at the same time."

Helen smiled in relief. "I'm glad to hear that. Daria, I'm happy for you, and for Jane, but you know how I feel about you posing nude. And for a nude painting of you to be published in a magazine…"

"Yes, I know, Mom, but don't worry, that magazine has a very limited circulation. It's kind of a trade publication for art galleries and museums. And I'm trying to cut back. Oh, Jane also sold another painting. It's one of me sitting at my desk writing. Jane titled it 'Short Story'."

"Another nude?"

"Yes."

"Oh, lord. Where is that one going to end up, in a saloon somewhere? The bank lobby? The board room at my law firm?"

"As it happens, I can answer that. It was sold to the Athena Womens' Health and Fitness Spa here in Boston, and it will hang in a lounge/sports drink/juice bar overlooking the pool and the main exercise room. The patrons will gaze on my perfect physique, and be inspired to go work out some more instead of having that third carrot juice."

Strange noises came over the phone. Daria was about to ask her mother if she was all right when she recognized the noises as laughter. "Hey, my physique isn't quite _that _funny."

"Ha ha! No, Daria, I was just thinking about… well, never mind. You have as good a physique as any I've ever seen, honey, and don't try to tell yourself different. That painting belongs in that spa. I just hope there's going to be an end to this series of nudes." Helen made more notes on the pad.

"Oh, there will be. I'm only doing it to get Jane started on the road to Successful Artist land. And it seems to be working. Even though the money she insists on paying me _is_ starting to pile up, I don't really like modeling. But tell me how Dad and Quinn are doing."

"Your father has a new client, a local chain of lawn and garden centers. He was buying some supplies and got to talking with the owner, and it seems he liked your father's enthusiasm. They're doing some funny commercials with squirrels and garden gnomes. His blood pressure has been lower recently, but it's still too high. His doctor just changed his medication."

"Does he have a blood pressure gauge?"

"Yes, but neither of us can get an accurate reading from the darn thing."

"I saw a really easy-to-use electronic one the other day. It has a big LCD readout. I'll send him one of those."

"That's so sweet of you, Daria. Your father will really appreciate that. He misses you too, you know. I sometimes find him just standing in the upstairs hallway, looking down the hall at your door."

"Aww. I wish I could get home more often. I'll put a note in with it. How's Quinn doing?"

"Quinn is doing much better in school than last year. She's getting mostly B's, and A's in trig and writing. She told me you were helping her with those."

"I am, but she's doing the work herself. I always knew she was smart. Now that she's admitted it to herself, she's making up for lost time. I just really wish she'd gotten to that point last year, so I could have shared it with her more."

"Quinn wishes you were still here, sweetie, and so do your father and I."

"Yeah, me too. I like Raft, but I miss you guys."

Daria awakened to the ringing of her phone. Her groping hand found it on the nightstand and somehow pushed the right button to answer it. "Mmmf?

"Daria, what did you do to Mom?"

"Quinn? Issamiddluhthenight!"

"Geez, Daria, this is the time I always get up. I wanted to be sure you'd be there when I called. I'm tired of playing phone tag with you. After Mom called you yesterday, she kept staring at your chair at the table, and she had this really funny expression, and then after dinner she called **_Rita,_** of all people, and took the phone and the message pad upstairs with her, and when she finally came down, she wouldn't tell me anything, and she made me wash the dishes! What did you say to her?"

"Thassa stupid question. I told her to look at my chair funny, then call Rita, then make you wash the dishes."

"DARiaa!"

Fully awakened by anger, Daria sat up and put her feet on the floor. "Quinn, you moron! How the hell do you expect me to explain a facial expression I didn't see and a phone call I didn't hear?"

"Just tell me what you told her!"

"I told her that I painted a watercolor landscape and a man bought it for a lot of money, not that it's any of your damn business. And I'll tell you something else. I know where you live, and I'm not that far away. If you ever call me before seven a.m. again, and it's not to warn me that Godzilla is marching on Boston, you will wake up the next morning with a bad headache, a purple head, and no hair, you got that?" Daria hit the disconnect button. She sat there on the edge of the bed, furious, knowing that there was no possibility of her getting back to sleep.

The phone rang again. Daria considered throwing it against a wall, screaming obscenities into it, and dumping the batteries out of it. Then she considered that Quinn was probably calling back to apologize. She glared at it for a couple of seconds, then pushed the button to answer.

"Hello."

"Daria, I'm sorry if I woke you up, but I figured you'd already be awake, since you have classes too."

"Quinn, I told you guys my schedule. None of my classes is as early as first period at Lawndale High, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I can, and often do, sleep till after ten. I frequently work and study far into the night, when it's quiet. But I still need my sleep, and I don't appreciate being awakened as soon as the first birdie chirps on _your_ windowsill. Hmm…" Daria grabbed a pencil and scribbled some notes on the formica top of her nightstand.

"Well, I'm sorry, and I won't do it again. I was just worried about the way Mom was acting. I guess she was staring at your chair because she misses, you, but why do you suppose she called Rita?"

Daria's feet and legs were getting chilled, so she tucked them back under the covers and lay down. "I dunno. Bragging, maybe?" she yawned. "How's school?"

"It's going really well, Daria, well, maybe not phys ed so much, but all my academic classes. Mister DiMartino even called me Daria a couple of days ago, isn't that weird? I think he misses you. Another weird thing is, guys still ask me out all the time, even though I get good grades, and they don't call me a brain or anything, I mean, who'd have thought that? In fact, just the other night, I was talking with Mike Taylor, and he said…"

Daria woke up again when her alarm went off, an hour later. The phone was still in her hand.

Author's note: The name "Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe" is from an old Three Stooges short.

Disclaimer

"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty [gehardestyyahoo.com]


	10. Chapter Ten

****

ONCE UPON A TIME AT COLLEGE

Chapter Ten

by Galen Hardesty

…

Raft College gleamed stately and serene in the early morning sunlight, beautiful as a Currier and Ives print. Sparkling frost covered everything. Students were beginning to move about the campus, passing in and out of the long blue shadows of the buildings and trees, leaving trails in the frost that covered the lawns. Daria would have gazed out the stairway window at the scene for a minute longer, but she was walking as far as the bus stop with Jane, and Jane was hurrying to catch the bus. She could drive, but the parking situation at BFAC was worse than that at Raft, and not be in a dorm. Daria smiled, reminded how fortunate she was to live within walking distance of Raft. She hurried down the stairs to catch up with Jane.

Outside, Daria saw that there was already a set of footprints emerging from the building and turning right on the sidewalk, in the direction of the bus stop. She could also see, by a long skidmark, that the maker of those prints had slipped and nearly fallen making the turn. Jane, evidently not noticing that, did exactly the same thing. Daria stifled a snicker.

As they penguin-walked to the bus stop, Daria saw that there was someone already standing there. A woman approached from the other direction. The first person seemed to hear her coming, for he turned toward her and called out, in Chuck's voice: "Good morning to you, fair lady! How are you this lovely morning?"

The woman stopped in her tracks about twenty feet from the bus stop. She stood there stock still for a few seconds, then turned around and headed back the way she came, walking more quickly than before, casting frequent glances over her shoulder.

__

Oh, crap, thought Daria.

Chuck stood staring after the woman, then guiltily looked around.

Jane and Daria arrived at the bus stop. "Still your old charming self, I see," Jane remarked sarcastically.

"I don't get it. I just said 'good morning'."

Hands on hips, Daria glared at him. "You said a lot more than that. You said, and I quote, 'Good morning to you, fair lady! How are you this lovely morning?'"

"Yeah… so? I was just being friendly and slightly complimentary."

"Chuck, you don't go around accosting complete strangers like that, especially not in big cities. In Possum Holler, Tennessee, she might have good morninged you back, but in Boston, you just identified yourself as either a lunatic or a sex offender. You scared the poor woman off and made her miss her bus, and if she gets fired, it'll be your fault."

"But… why?"

"Numbers, Chuck. In a small town where it's possible to actually recognize all the people, or a significant fraction thereof, people can feel a sense of community, of neighborliness. They can talk and act like that. But in a city, the sense of community doesn't stretch that far. You have a circle of friends and colleagues that you actually know, and everyone else is a stranger. People develop avoidance behaviors to keep from constantly confronting strangers, which is stressful. The bigger the city, the worse it gets. And Boston is a very big city."

Chuck appeared genuinely puzzled. "You mean I'm not even supposed to speak to people?"

"Only if you need to, and then be polite, impersonal, and brief, and stick to business. Don't talk to someone like a friend or acquaintance unless they actually are."

"Damn. Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before? Does this mean I've been acting like a lunatic for years?"

"I don't know about everyone else, but to me you acted like you wanted to be shunned. Hell, sometimes you acted like you wanted people to throw rocks at you, but I kept forgetting to bring rocks. Anyway, it wasn't my job to watch you before."

The bus was approaching, and Jane and Chuck moved closer to the bus stop sign. Chuck looked around for the woman he'd frightened, but she was nowhere to be seen. He gazed unhappily at the frozen ground. "Guess it's a good thing I'm going to see my counselor this morning," he muttered unhappily.

Daria edged closer to Jane. "Watch him," she muttered _sotto voce_. "Don't let him molest the bus driver."

Jane smirked and boarded the bus, followed by Chuck. With a hiss of air brakes and a low rumble from the engine, the bus moved out, belching diesel fumes into the not-all-that-fresh Boston morning air.

Daria sighed, scanned for cops, and furtively jaywalked across the street. _Damn,_ she thought. _Chuck's been around. He shouldn't be pulling this country-bumpkin crap. _She frowned as she angled across the campus._ Was he really just trying to be friendly and complimentary, like he said, or was he indeed pulling some crap? And if so, why? What could he hope to gain? _Part of her mind came back with _What did he hope to gain when he patted that girl's ass and got kicked out of Halyard?_

Well, that's the big question, isn't it? Escape from academic pressure, maybe? Daria had privately wondered if Chuck might have been in over his head at Halyard. Entrance requirements there were even higher than those at Raft and Bromwell, although not by much, and she supposed courses were correspondingly more rigorous. _By coming to Raft, he may have just leaped out of the fire and into the frying pan. And if that's the case, what does that say about his future behavior? And if he gets himself kicked out of Raft, what happens to Mom? His father will have no further use for me and no further need to hold back that evidence. And if Mom is indicted…_

Daria shook her head to derail that train of thought. Her mind had followed that track plenty of times. It ended with Mom in prison, Dad and Quinn living in some shabby apartment or trailer park, and her either back in the dorm and working at some slave-wage job, unable to continue to carry the hours she was managing now, or perhaps unable to earn enough to stay at Raft at all, and having to go to Lawndale Community College. _If it_ _comes to that, I might as well not bother. A degree from there would be useless to me. I'd rather…_

Daria shook her head again. That led to thoughts of the possible above-minimum-wage work that might be open to her, of modeling nude for art students other than Jane, and other things she didn't want to do, other thoughts she didn't want to think. _Dammit! How did I suddenly lose control of my life?_

'As if you ever had control,' the smartass corner of her brain shot back.

__

I was starting to get some. Then Upchuck had to get possessed by demon hormones, or whatever the hell is wrong with him. Which would ordinarily have been no skin off my nose, but Mom had to go and get her legal butt caught in a crack, and now to save my family, I have to save Upchuck too. And it's starting to look like he's not going to make it easy for me.

Daria found that she was speedwalking, and the air this morning was too cold for her to be breathing that heavily. She forced herself to slow down. _What the hell is his problem, anyway? It's not likely to be academic pressure in this instance, because his first class isn't for three weeks. He can't even start to register till day after tomorrow. Could he really be that clueless about women?_

He seemed to be doing all right yesterday. Oh, wait. That was only after I corrected a couple of false starts on his part. He tried to hug me, and then he went into his old 'Mr. Ultrasuave' routine. Maybe he **doesn't **know how to act around women. Or maybe he gets nervous and trips over his own social feet. So what can I do about that? Give him womanizing lessons? Be his dating teacher? Hell, I don't know any more about dating than he does. Well, not much. Anyway, I don't want to be his dating practice dummy.

As she approached Revere Hall, site of her first class of the morning, Daria thought about what would probably happen if she were unable to do anything about Chuck's problem. They wouldn't be in the same classes, so she couldn't follow him around all the time, and even if she could, that was no guarantee that she'd be able to control him. With the behavior pattern he was currently exhibiting, it was likely just a matter of time until his sweaty little hands made contact with some female student's anatomy, and then…

Dammit. I guess I **do** want to be the dummy's practice dummy. God help me. Maybe I can correct enough of his misconceptions to allow him to function normally. Maybe all he needs is to be around females enough that he doesn't choke up and go into self-destruct mode every time he tries to interact with one. Maybe if I observe him enough, I can figure out what his problem is. At worst… she grimaced._ At worst, if he pats my butt, I can administer some negative reinforcement, instead of some other girl reporting him and getting him expelled. Although I resent the hell out of having to even consider it, I guess there are worse things than being patted by Upchuck._

…

Daria took another bite of her apple and studied the screen of her laptop. Satisfied with the outline, she was prepared to start fleshing it out. The first three sentences formed in her mind. Laying the apple down, she reached toward the keys. The telephone rang.

Grumpily, she put the laptop into sleep mode, set it aside, and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Trent's mellow, husky voice replied, "Hi, Daria. Is Janey there?"

"Hi, Trent. No, she's not back from BFAC yet. She could come in in a few minutes, or it could be an hour or two. Can I take a message?"

"Uh, well, I was calling to see if that invitation is still open, so I guess you're the one I need to talk to."

Daria smiled. "Sure, it's still open. When do you want to come?"

"I was thinking I'd get up fairly early tomorrow, throw some stuff in the car, and come on up. Uh, how long does it take to get there?"

That was Trent for you. Don't bother packing a suitcase, just pack the car. "It takes me about eight to nine hours, but I drive kind of slow. It's about three hundred seventy-five miles. You get on I-95 North, and after about sixty miles it turns into the New Jersey Turnpike. Stay on it, and after another seventy miles or so, it turns back into I-95. After another hundred and twenty-five miles, you get on I-91 North, and, um… well, after that it gets complicated. You'll need a map."

"Thanks, Daria. I think I've got one. Guess I'll see you tomorrow evening. Or night. Or maybe we should leave it loose."

"Okay, Trent. Remember, we're right across the street from the south side of the Raft campus. Call if you need help."

"I'll be fine. Bye, Daria."

"Bye." Daria hung up the phone and turned her attention back to her laptop. She had been typing for several minutes when she heard a key in the lock. The door opened and Jane came in.

"Hey, Jane. Trent just called. He says he's going to drive up tomorrow."

"Oh, good. Maybe if everything goes his way, he'll make it by the day after."

"Will he be all right driving all that way by himself? What if he gets sleepy?"

"He pulls over and pretends he's checking his map. Then he naps till a Highway Patrolman wakes him up, and then he drives till he gets sleepy again."

Daria chuckled. "So, how was Chuck on the bus? Any trouble?"

"I had to pull him out of the slough of despond. Other than that, no."

"Huh? What was he despondent about?"

"He seemed to feel like what he did was a lot worse than it actually was, and he was afraid you'd think he was a male chauvinist pig or something."

"What? That doesn't make sense. That doesn't even follow. All he did was say good morning strangely. And what was he afraid you'd think?"

"He didn't specify. He seemed a lot more concerned about your opinion than mine."

"Huh. I wonder what that's all about."

"He _likes _you, Daria." Jane wiggled her eyebrows.

"Bull. He likes everything he thinks might have functional female sex organs. But never mind that. I've been thinking, and I think it'll help Chuck to just be around females more.

Jane crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow. "Now that's just silly. If females could stand to be around him, he wouldn't need help."

"Very funny. I'm going to start letting him go with me shopping, to the laundromat, stuff like that. I figure the more he's exposed to women, the fewer stupid things he'll do out of ignorance. If he starts to say or do something stupid, I'll smack him with a rolled-up newspaper, and he won't get expelled or arrested for doing it in public later on. Can I count on you to participate and not murder him?"

"Hmm. I guess I could give it a shot, but I reserve the right to maim or mutilate him if I deem it necessary."

"That sounds fair. Oh, by the way, what about Thanksgiving? Have you heard anything from your folks?"

"Nope. I'll ask Trent when he gets here, but I don't expect anyone to show. It was never a big holiday at our house."

"You'll spend it with us, then. We always have two weeks' worth of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe with your and Trent's help, there'll only be a week and a half's worth this year."

Jane grinned. "Always happy to help a friend."

Daria picked up the phone, paused a second in thought, and punched in a number. She waited a few seconds, then "Hey, Chuck, it's Daria. I was wondering… no, not about… Chuck,… Chuck, cut yourself some slack. It wasn't that bad. I… Look, you're not going to do it again, are you? …Good, then forget about it. It's no biggie. The reason I called was to ask you what you're doing for Thanksgiving. ..You are? ..He is? That's great. But if he has to cancel, call me. You have an invitation to dinner with my family and Jane and her brother. Okay, 'bye."

Daria hung up, then dialed another number. After waiting several seconds, she said, "Hello, Mom?" …I'm fine. How are you and Dad and Quinn? …That's good. …Thanksgiving? I was going to ask you about that. Is it okay if I invite Jane and Trent over for Thanksgiving dinner? Jane doesn't expect any of the rest of her family to show up at their house. …Great, thanks, Mom. We'll take off from here as soon as we can; I'll get back with you on when to expect us. …Chuck? He's doing okay. He's planning to spend the day with his dad. …His mom? I really don't know. …Well, I have to go. I have some work to finish, and I need to get to bed early. …No, I'm fine, just tired. I was up till early this morning playing poker. …No… Yes, I did. …Yeah, but… Mom… Mom, this is me, Daria. When I play poker, it's not gambling. …I'll call you back tomorrow. 'Bye, Mom."

…

Daria bustled through the apartment door, rubbing her hands together. Gusty winds made it seem much colder than it actually was outside, but it was cold enough. She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose on the way to her bedroom. Re-emerging sans coat and book bag, she headed to the kitchen where she ran water in a pan and set it on a burner. Opening a cabinet, she removed a canister of cocoa mix. As she reached for a mug, Daria paused and checked her watch. She crossed the den and peered out the window. Returning to the kitchen, she took down two mugs, and added more water to the pan. Then she sat down at the breakfast bar and opened a book.

In a minute she heard footsteps climbing the stairs and approaching the door, followed by the sound of a key in the lock. The door swung open and admitted Jane, making brr noises. "Damn, it's nasty out there!"

"That it is," Daria agreed. "Care to join me in a mug of hot water?"

Jane cocked an eyebrow as she slid her bookbag off. "Sounds kind of crowded."

Daria laid her book down and stepped to the stove, where the water was beginning to boil. "I'm going to flavor mine with cocoa mix," she said, pouring the hot water into a mug.

"Ah. In that case, I'll have what you're having."

A couple of minutes later, having finished mashing all the lumps out of her cocoa with her spoon, Jane sipped contentedly. "Mmm. That hits the spot. Say, isn't this visitors' night at the Raft Student Union?"

Daria had her hands wrapped around her mug, absorbing the heat that escaped from the drink. "Yeah, on Tuesdays, students from any college are welcome. There's usually a DJ, sometimes a local band."

"Let's go tonight."

"Huh? We can't. Trent's on his way up. He might show up any time."

"Daria, this is Trent we're talking about. If he shows up any time today or tonight, I'll eat a vole. He'll sleep late, then he'll pack for an hour, then he'll get something to eat and take a nap. Then he'll pack a little more, and he won't be able to find something, and he'll waste a few hours looking for it, then he'll take another nap. Ten to one he hasn't finished packing yet."

Daria made a noise that might have been a chuckle. "I wouldn't be surprised. He did say 'leave it loose' when we were talking about his ETA."

"Well, there you go. 'Leave it loose' means 'I have no idea when I'll get there.' I'll take my phone, you take yours, and if by some freak accident he does get here early, he'll call."

"It's cold out there, Jane. I think I'd rather just stay here and read."

"Of course you would. If you had your way, you'd stay here and read until they break down the door and find you dead of old age and half-eaten by your seventy-four cats. But friends don't let friends die alone. We're going to the mixer, and you're going to talk to people, or I'll get Quinn and her friends up here to do an intervention."

"I hate you."

"Hate me at the mixer."

…

Chuck took a drink from the can of cola in his hand. Rocking back and forth a little, he looked around him at the other students standing or milling around in the Student Union building. Most of the first floor was one big room; some architect's idea of separate but interconnected multifunctional spaces. There were chairs and sofas and stools and coffee tables in seemingly random groupings, large brick and stone planters divided but didn't divide the space, and the floor was sunken and raised here and there. A large alcove in the rear held many vending machines. "So, I should forget what you told me about not talking to strangers in big cities," he said.

Daria shook her head. "No, don't forget it. It's just not applicable to this particular situation. Since we're all students and we're all here for the same reason, we're not exactly strangers. Think of this as, say, a gathering of the clans. We're Clan Raft. Jane's Clan BFAC. We don't know who these others are, but they've all come here to meet and greet and possibly hook up. Everyone's approachable. They wouldn't have come otherwise. So pick someone and approach her. Just don't lapse into your Upchuck persona."

"Ah. Sounds like good advice." Chuck decided not to mention that he thought of it as his 007 persona. He had already picked out someone and approached her, and was talking to her, but she didn't seem to notice. He sighed and looked around again. "I'll just follow your lead then, shall I?"

"Uh, I don't think that would be your best move. I've never been to one of these before, and you know from high school how gregarious I am. But you never had a problem approaching girls." Daria shifted her weight and looked around herself.

"Ha. That was the, uh, Upchuck persona."

"Oh."

"See anyone you know?"

"Only you and Jane, and I don't actually see her right now. There are some students I recognize from classes, but I don't know their… ooh."

"What?"

"That guy over there in the field jacket with long hair is a BFAC student. I met him briefly at Jane's old place. Name's Geoff."

"Ah. Want to talk to him?"

"No."

As Chuck pondered a response to that, a huge muscular, slightly pudgy blond guy, who put Daria in mind of a Viking warrior who liked his mead and ale and haunches a little too much, sauntered up. Saying nothing, he locked eyes with Chuck and just stared, smiling unpleasantly. Chuck smiled back, amiably at first, then with increasing amounts of unease and apprehension. The big blond guy maintained his predatory smile, saying nothing. As Daria watched, bemused, Chuck broke eye contact, looked around and back to the big guy, then away again, and finally slunk off.

The Viking turned to Daria. "Hi. I'm 'Crusher' Kujowski, but you can call me Al. You're in my calculus class, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Daria Morgendorffer. What's with the staring thing, Al?"

"I'm practicing my intimidation. I'm a defensive lineman for the Reavers, you know."

"Actually, I didn't. Between classes, my writing, and my job, I haven't had time to go to the games lately."

"I know what you mean. I have a football scholarship, but that's a lot like a full-time job, with all the practices and stuff. My schoolwork suffers sometimes. Like, this is my second time through that calculus class, and I may need to hire a tutor."

Jane, had she been watching, would have detected a gleam in Daria's eye. "Al, how'd you like to do me a small favor in exchange for a calculus tutoring session?" Daria asked.

"Sure. Who do I have to kill?"

Daria smiled a small smirk. "You see that guy over there in the old field jacket? Keep an eye on him. If you see him come up and start talking to me, give us a minute, and then come over." She lowered her voice. "I'm going to tell him…"

…

Geoff sipped his root beer and looked around. There seemed to be nearly as many females as males present, he noted with a certain amount of surprise. Usually the girls were heavily outnumbered at these things. He began to drift toward an interesting stabile in the middle of the floor. Constructed entirely of white cordage and varnished hardwood one by twos, the intriguing thing about it was that, although no two pieces of wood touched, and there were no cords or wires suspending it from the ceiling, it managed to stand nearly twenty feet high. The lengths of wood were all short and more horizontal to the floor than not, and he couldn't see what was keeping the whole thing from collapsing to the floor in a tangled heap.

Geoff's closer examination of the stabile was interrupted when he noticed a girl on the far side of it. She was slight of stature, wearing black slacks and boots and a sweater knitted in geometric patterns of blue, green, and black. Her slightly more than shoulder length brown hair framing an oval face accented by black framed glasses looked familiar to him. He stood there several moments, trying to recall where he'd seen her before and whether he should know her. She wasn't in any of his classes at BFAC, he was pretty sure, but she was somehow connected with art in his mind.

His artist's eyes studied her again, taking in line and form. The slacks she wore weren't snug fitting, and the sweater even less so, but he could tell from their drape and hang, from the subtle highlights and shadows, that she had a good, slender figure. Her boots caught his eye. They looked like army boots, or Docs. A memory hovered on the edge of recollection. Then she looked his way and noticed him looking at her. An expression flitted across her face, and then was gone, expertly wiped away, but he had caught it. It had been a distinctly displeased expression. And then he connected with the memory. Black boots, unlaced. A black pleated skirt, a green jacket. Reddish brown hair floating, streaming from a hotly blushing face. Eyes that flashed from behind thick black-framed glasses. A snarled "Move or die," an elbow brushing him aside, boots clattering down the stairs. The girl who'd been modeling for Jane, just before Jane had moved out.

Geoff let his feet carry him toward the stabile, and closer to the girl. He recalled the painting of her that Jane had been working on, and how he'd stared at it, unable to look away. He had seen many nude girls and women, hundreds, maybe thousands of paintings of them, and of course countless photos. But there was something about the girl in Jane's painting, a sense that there was more to her than met the eye, a feeling of… suppressed energy, or hidden treasure, or something. Geoff didn't know whether it came from Jane's artistic talent, or whether it was something about the girl, or for that matter, if it was a mere fortuitous combination of brushstrokes. But he wanted to find out. He wanted to get to know this girl, and to paint her himself.

Abandoning the stabile, Geoff made straight for her. Daria watched him approach, expressionless.

"Hello… Darla, is it? You probably don't remember me. I'm Geoff."

"No, it isn't, and my memory is quite good, Geoff," Daria replied coldly.

"Er, Dora?"

"It's Daria," said Daria reluctantly. "What do you want?"

"Well, first, to apologize for bust… er, interrupting the two of you that day. If I'd known, I wouldn't have…"

"Busting in is the correct term, and you already have. Jane relayed your apology to me, and I accepted. You're forgiven. You should go now."

"Wait, Daria. You know, since Jane moved out, we haven't had a female model. I, uh, saw the painting she was working on, and I was wondering if…"

"If I'd model for you? For $3.33 an hour, like you paid her? No."

"We could do better than that. Substantially better. We'd really like to have you. Uh, model for us, that is."

__

So much vicious sarcasm, Daria thought wistfully, _so little time_. "Let me be clear about this. Jane is my best friend, and that's the only reason I model for her. Money has nothing to do with it. You guys don't have enough money to get me to model for you, and you never will. And you shouldn't be talking to me. Crusher is here tonight."

"Crusher? Who's Crusher?"

"Crusher is my cousin, and he promised my brother he'd watch out for me while I'm here. Ever since Jane told him how you bashed down the door and barged in on us, he's been swearing he'd beat you to a bloody pulp if he ever got his hands on you."

"Don't worry about it. I can take care of myself."

"Not against Crusher, you can't. He's a defensive lineman for the Raft Reavers, and he'd make two of you with some left over. And he's taken a serious dislike to you."

"A defensive… not Crusher Kujowski?"

"That's him. You may know some self-defense moves, but he knows a lot about fractures and concussions and dislocations and such. You should leave before… uh oh."

Crusher loomed up like a sudden afternoon thunderstorm. "Is that him?" he demanded.

Fear showed on Daria's face. "Crusher, wait! He apologized, and he was just leaving!"

Crusher stared at Geoff as if committing him to memory, and smiled unpleasantly.

"No, Crusher! Remember what the Dean said! You send one more non-football player to the ER, and he'll put you on academic probation!"

Crusher cracked his knuckles.

"Crusher! Remember what the judge said! If it happens again, you'll have a much tougher time convincing him it was an accident!"

Crusher cracked his neck and flexed his shoulders, as if loosening up, still smiling unpleasantly at Geoff.

"Crusher, don't do it! Think of your poor mother!" Daria pleaded.

Crusher hesitated, as if thinking.

Daria turned to Geoff. "Go! Go now! Run like the wind!" she cried, with gestures.

Geoff stood mesmerized for some fraction of a second, then whirled and sprinted for the door, dodging through the students as best he could.

Al grinned as he watched Geoff go. "That was fun. I like the way you think, Daria," he said, unwittingly scoring two points. He'd gotten her name right, and he'd complimented her on her thinking. "Say, I know where there's a party with a better grade of refreshments, and more interesting guests, too. Want to come?"

Still smirking at Geoff's retreat, Daria said, "I don't know, Al. Gatherings with a really high jock ratio tend to bring out my snide side."

Al's grin widened slightly. "I'd pay a quarter to see that. But it won't be just jocks and cheerleaders. There'll be some physics geeks, some MFAs, some people from the paper…"

Daria considered. She had come out tonight in the hopes of meeting interesting people, and it sounded like going with Al would improve her chances of that considerably. She was uneasy about letting Chuck out of her sight, but she couldn't watch him all the time. Chuck would be happy to see Al leave, and might even relax enough to talk to a girl or two. Anyway, Jane had been right. She had been spending too much time in her dorm room and apartment. Daria didn't intend college to be just a continuation of high school. Al's mention of "some people from the paper" clinched it. She wanted to get to know some people from the paper.

"Okay. Sounds like fun." Daria looked around for Jane and Chuck, but they were nowhere to be seen. With a mental shrug, she followed Al toward the coat racks.

…

Jane muzzily groped her way down the hallway toward the soft sounds of culinary activity. When she reached the kitchen she unsquinted an eye enough to see Daria, fully dressed, making an omelet by the light of the one small bulb in the range hood. The first gray light of predawn was oozing through the chinks in the curtains.

"Mrng," she ventured.

"Mm," Daria agreed noncommittally.

"Watcha doonup surly?"

"Early for you, late for me. I just got in. Didn't mean to wake you, but I'm hungry."

"Sokay. I wuzzup tapee." Jane shuffled to the coffee pot and poured herself a mug of fragrant just-made coffee. "Wheredja go?"

"From the mixer? Another party."

Jane took a swallow of coffee. "Oo-**wow!** Stomp my head and call me Popeye!"

"Oh, uh, that coffee's kinda strong."

"You don't say." Jane gasped. She attempted to set her mug on the breakfast bar, but encountered… stuff. She switched on the kitchen light and looked. The stuff was money. Stacks and piles and wads of Federal Reserve notes. There were also three prepaid phone cards, a Swiss Army knife, a sheathed boot dagger with a black widow spider on the handle, and a black ninja sword.

"Dayum, Daria! What did you do, take up Ninjutsu drunk rolling?"

Daria smirked slightly. "Nothing so strenuous. I won that in a poker game."

"A poker game? I know you used to clean me and the band out for matchsticks, but I didn't know you were that good."

Daria chuckled softly, and coughed. "I didn't either, till I tried. Some people say poker is a game of money management. Some say it's all about calculating the odds. Others say it's a game of psychology. I think it's all three of those. I'm pretty good at the first two, and I know a little about the third."

"There's a lot of money here, Daria. A **lot **of money."

"Two thousand three hundred nineteen dollars, according to the running total I was keeping, plus the other stuff. I haven't actually counted it yet. You want your omelet now?"

"Sure, might as well. That stealth espresso of yours isn't gonna let me go back to sleep. So how'd you wind up at the poker game?"

Daria scooped the omelet into two plates and brought them over to the breakfast bar, shoving some bills and ironmongery out of the way. "Some people I sort of knew from Raft at the second party were talking about starting one at this guy's apartment in the same building, so when we got enough players we wandered over there."

"Geez, Daria, what turned you into such a wild child all of a sudden?"

"All those years of hanging out with you, Trent, and the band, I guess. Plus I was with Crusher Kujowski, and I sort of trust him."

"You mean that huge Norse god you inducted into your guerilla theater troupe?

"You saw that, eh?" Yeah, that's Crusher. Al to his friends."

"I'd just come from the restroom, otherwise I probably would've wet myself laughing. How did you land him? You must've had to put out."

"Jane! I'll have you know we have a business arrangement. He beats people up for me in exchange for math tutoring. He'll be happy to do you, too."

'Mmm, he can do me anytime."

"You slut."

Jane grinned around a forkful of omelet. "So, do you always go armed when you go out partying, or did the poker game get attacked by ninjas?"

"The guy whose apartment we were at kept demanding another chance to win his money back. Couldn't stand to quit while he was in the hole. That's why I'm so late getting in. He put that stuff in the pot when his money ran out. I happened to win the last pot, so I got stuck with the knick-knacks. I tried to just leave 'em, but he wouldn't hear of it."

"Well, look on the bright side. Most of your Christmas shopping is done. Hey, aren't you gonna have some of your paint stripper?" Jane held up her coffee mug.

"Not now. I figure if I go lay down right now without undressing, I can get almost four hours of sleep before I absolutely have to leave for class. I'll fill up my traveling mug with that coffee, and hope it's enough to keep me awake till I can get a refill." Daria held up an arm and sniffed. "Can you smell me?"

"Not unless you smell like coffee and omelet and money."

"I'll settle for that."


	11. Chapter Eleven

Charles Ruttheimer the third stood silent in the near-darkness of his bathroom, illuminated only by the green LED on the charging stand of his toothbrush, his fingers still on the toilet's flush handle. His fitful dreams of huge blond bullies had been interrupted by the sound of the toilet flushing in the next apartment, and by the pressure in his bladder. Having shuffled his way into the bathroom and relieved the pressure, he'd been about to flush when he'd caught the low sounds of conversation.

Half- awake, he'd stood there silently and listened for no particular reason until Daria had begun telling Jane about her night's activities. His resentment flared when she spoke of going to the other party with 'Crusher'. Then he'd listened with increasing interest and amazement as her tale unfolded. This was a side of Daria that he hadn't known existed, but it fit her so well. Megafeisty! His mind's eye pictured her stalking the night-shrouded streets, bristling with weaponry, pockets overflowing with money, her outfit morphing between what she'd been wearing last night, her signature outfit from high school, and something out of _Zena, Warrior Princess. Rrowrr! He fervently wished he was in bed asleep right now, with that last image playing the female lead in a long, vivid dream._

He heard Daria say, "Can you smell me?" and then "I'll settle for that," and wished he hadn't. Those two lines conjured up an amazing number of images in his dream-befuddled mind. Then he heard footsteps coming nearer in the other apartment, the faint creak of a bedspring, the thump of a boot hitting a carpeted floor, then another one, and then the soft sounds of the wondrous Miss Morgendorffer slipping into bed, which conjured up even more images.

Chuck started to flush the toilet and go back to bed, which he now realized he should have done before listening in on a conversation not intended for his ears. But the early morning silence was still so deep that he could faintly hear the sounds of a fork against a plate as Jane finished her omelet. The sound might waken Daria, or hinder her from getting to sleep. She might even somehow deduce from it that he had been listening. Leaving the toilet unflushed, Chuck silently crept back to his bed and eased himself back under the covers. Images of Daria, Warrior Princess stalking the dark streets of unsuspecting Boston, eyes ablaze, sword ready, whispering 'Can you smell me?' vied with images of a blond, blue-eyed scowling giant as his head sank back into the pillow. And flowing through them all was the awareness that, just a few feet away, just on the other side of the wall, slept the real, the magnificent Daria Morgendorffer, resting from her real adventures. It was exquisite torture, and yet somehow strangely comforting.

Sleep eventually pulled Charles Ruttheimer away from his sad, fearful, hopeful thoughts, and into exciting but troubled dreams.

…

The next day a tired, sleepy Daria shambled back from classes and hauled herself up the stairs. The phone was ringing as she reached the third floor. She hurried to unlock the door and grabbed the handset. "Hello?"

"Hey, Daria, this is Trent. I'm here."

"No, you aren't. I'm here, and I don't see you anywhere," Daria replied, and heard Trent's laugh-cough come over the phone.

"I'm at the south end of the Raft campus. Well, the southwest end. I don't see anything that looks like an apartment building."

"Uh-huh. What intersection are you closest to?"

"I'm at the corner of Harrison and Sawyer Avenues."

"You're where? We don't have any streets by those names anywhere around here. Maybe you're at another college. There are an awful lot of them in Boston."

"I'm looking at the sign at the entrance, right across the street. It says 'Raft University, Boston Campus."

"What the… I'm calling up a map on the internet. Harrison and Sawyer, you say?"

"Right."

"G…seven. G-7. Oh, crap. You're in Old Boston. Like, ancient history Boston. You're kinda right between Boston Common and the Old North Church."

"Sounds about right."

"Oh, wait. There is a Raft campus down there, a little bitty one. It's where the College of Dentistry is. I didn't even know it existed."

"So where are you, then?"

"I'm at the Somerville campus, about four miles north of you. What you want to do is, lemme see… get on I-95 north, cross the north arm of the harbor, go about four miles, then get off on the west Halyard Street exit. Go about half a mile, then turn northwest onto Powderhouse Road. The Raft campus will be on your right. Go about five blocks to Armory Street, which only goes to the left. There's a three story red brick townhouse with white trim at the corner of Powderhouse and Armory. That's us. Turn left on Armory, then right into the first driveway. That's our parking area. You'll see me. Got it?"

"Uh, repeat everything after Powerpuff Road."

"Mnrrgh…"

…

Trent's study of phone books and his Boston map was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. He reached out a long arm and snagged it off the wall. "Hello?"

There was silence from the phone for a couple of seconds, then a young female voice asked, "Who is this?"

Trent grinned. "Hey, Daria's sister. This is Trent."

"My name is Quinn," she said, sounding peeved. "What are you doing up there?"

"Daria's letting me sleep with her."

"_What?_"

Trent chuckled, then coughed. "On the floor in the den. I'm visiting Janey and looking for gigs."

There was the sound of an exhalation, then "Oh."

"I'm putting together a Mystik Spiral Boston tour."

"Oh. Um, that's nice. Is Daria there?"

"No. She went out with that Chuck guy from down the hall."

"_What?!_ Daria's dating Upchuck?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"Where'd they go?"

"I don't know. Do you want to leave a message?"

"Um, is Jane there?"

"Not yet. This is one of her late days. Oh, wait a minute, I think I hear someone coming."

Outside, footsteps approached the apartment door. Trent rose and laid the phone book aside. A key turned in the lock, the door opened, and Jane entered.

"Hey, Janey, let me take your stuff, and you talk to Daria's sister," Trent said.

Jane gave him a surprised look, but handed him her book bag and a large sketch pad, and took the phone. "Yo."

"Jane, what's this Trent was telling me about Daria dating Upchuck? Where is he taking her? What are they doing? Please tell me they're not going steady!"

Jane chuckled. "I don't think it's quite that serious yet. They went to the laundromat."

"Oh," said Quinn, sounding relieved. "So they're not really dating, then?"

"Not really. Daria calls it desensitization therapy. She's trying to gradually get him used to casual contact with women. She says he's making great strides. Last time, he was able to ask some woman for change, and she didn't even call the police."

Quinn chuckled. "Well, I'm relieved, but in a way I'm almost disappointed. I was hoping she'd start to develop a social life sooner or later. Maybe I can set her up with something over Christmas break."

Jane grinned. "Quinn, Quinn, Quinn, this is me, Jane. Daria's social director. Why, just last night I frogmarched the little hermit to a mixer at the Raft Student Union."

Quinn giggled. "I wish I could have seen that. A mixer, huh? Eww, lame. But I guess that would be an improvement for Daria. Did you manage to pry her off the wall after you got her there?"

"You shouldn't look down your nose so much, you'll get crosseyed. I think you're forgetting that Raft is an Ivy League school, surrounded by other Ivy League schools. Even the outcasts around here outclass the in-crowd at Lawndale High. I got picked up by a Halyard student. And Daria did okay, too. She ran one guy off, then left with a football player."

"What, Daria? A football player? Are you sure you don't mean a foosball player? Or maybe a video game player?"

"Nope. Varsity man, first string. Blond, blue eyes, six foot seven, about two hundred seventy-five pounds. You might be able to find a picture of him in the Boston paper at the library. Look for 'Crusher' Kujowski."

"Omigod! I can't believe this! Where did they go? What did they do?"

"Well, she crashed shortly after she got in this morning, so I haven't had time to thoroughly debrief her yet, but I gather they went to a party and she met several people on the staff of the school paper."

"Ohh, no. She blew off the hunk to hobnob with some geeks? That's Daria, all right. For a minute it sounded like she was doing so good. But she wouldn't know a good time if it bit her on the ass. _Darn_ it!"

Jane smirked. "You underestimate Daria, Quinn. She's got at least one date lined up with Al. And I can tell that you've never gone out on the town with her. That girl can run wild in ways you can't even imagine."

"Jane, don't blow smoke up my butt. I grew up with Daria. Sure she's strange, but she's dull. Dull, dull, dull."

"You wouldn't say that if you were here when she came in this morning. She… No. I should keep my mouth shut. You can get it straight from her if she wants to tell you."

There was a short silence on the line, then: "Aw, Jane, come on. You know Daria would never tell me anything interesting about herself. What about when she came in?"

Jane hesitated temptingly. "No, it's her business, not mine. Besides, you're not exactly famous for your ability to keep a secret."

"Jane, don't do this to me! I swear I won't tell a soul! Girl scout's honor!"

"Well… she came in about half an hour before dawn, armed to the teeth and loaded down with money."

"What?! Oh, come on. I can't see Daria carrying a gun all of a sudden."

"Not a gun. A sword. Also a morningstar and a boot dagger. Look, Quinn, I have to go. It's my turn to cook dinner, and Trent's here, so I gotta finish cutting up this horse. I'll tell Daria you called. Bye."

Quinn stood there, halfway between bemused and thunderstruck, staring at the phone in her hand. _Daria? Dating a huge stud? Money? Swords, daggers, and morningstars? What the heck is going on? What the heck is a morningstar, anyway? I'll call Robert, _she thought. _I bet he'll know._ Her finger stabbed rapidly at the keypad. _Later. First, the former fashion club is going to meet at the library and find a picture of Al 'Crusher' Kujowski. _Quinn smiled crookedly._ Good thing I was never a Girl Scout._

Grinning, Jane hung up the phone. Trent, having caught her end of the conversation, said, "You know Quinn can't keep a secret, right?"

"Oh, sure. She's probably bragging to her friends right now. The thing is, she can't brag about Daria without feeling proud of her. And nothing I told her was really a secret anyway. I'm pretty sure Daria won't kill me."

Trent picked up the ninja-to, pulled the blade partway out of its scabbard and examined it curiously. "Hmm. Probably not. I just hope she doesn't cut out your tongue with this new cutlery of hers."

…

Quinn scribbled a note and stuck it on the refrigerator, then checked to make sure she still had her library card. As she headed for the front door, she realized she was looking forward to seeing Daria again over Thanksgiving break. She couldn't wait to see if her sister had morphed into a sex goddess or a warrior princess or something while she was away at Raft.

…

"You're going to wind up with pink shorts."

Chuck looked up from loading a washing machine. "Huh?"

"Always wash your whites separately, unless you don't care what color they come out."

Chuck looked at his basket of laundry. "But I don't have enough stuff to justify two loads."

Daria shrugged. "Up to you."

Chuck looked at his laundry again and then at the clothing Daria was sorting and loading. "You want to wash all the whites together?" he asked, holding up some socks and briefs.

Daria looked at what Chuck was holding, then at the bras and panties she was separating out for a white load. "Uh, no."

Looking disappointed, Chuck stood there thinking for a few more seconds, then started to load his whites into a second machine. "I can't believe how expensive this is," he muttered.

Daria said, "I know, but all the other laundromats I've seen cost the same, so apparently they're not overcharging us to the point that an entrepreneur would see it as an opportunity to move in and cut costs."

"Hmm, maybe. Or maybe the mob controls all the laundromats in this area."

"I wouldn't think there'd be enough money in it to attract organized crime. I suppose it's possible, though."

"Oh, they wouldn't operate the places. They'd sell them the machines and supplies. Kind of like a franchise owner."

"Oh. I could see that. By the way, how'd you do last night after I left?"

"Uh, well, I didn't get thrown out or beaten up."

"It's a start."

"How about you?"

Daria began shoving quarters into one of the washing machines she was using. "We went to a party and I met some interesting people, including some who work on the school paper."

"Is that good?"

"For me it is. I want to get on staff myself."

Chuck looked surprised. "Really? I thought extracurricular activities were anathema to you."

Daria seemed to be concentrating hard on selecting the ideal wash cycle on her other machine. "Mrr… well yeah, they were, in high school. All the ones that might have had any scope for intelligence and creativity were either subverted into propaganda and fund-raising organs for Ms. Li, or firmly in the grip of insufferable creeps and assholes. But when it came time to apply for scholarships, I started to see the error of my ways. I should have picked one, joined it, and taken it over. That or started one of my own."

Chuck smiled wryly. "I know what you mean. About that time I was wishing that I'd finagled some official recognition for my entrepreneurial activities on the Internet and elsewhere. And if you'd started, say, a writing club, I'd have been delighted to join. Perhaps you'd have even considered joining a stock investors' club or a dot com marketing club, if I'd started one?"

Daria gave Chuck a sidewise glance as she fed quarters into the hungry washing machine. He was starting to look nervous when she said, "You know, I probably would have joined an investors' club. I have a few stocks and a couple of funds, and it would be nice to have someone to swap ideas with."

Chuck's smile became much cheerier. "Well, hey, no time like the present, eh?"

Daria smiled a bit in return. "Sure, why not. I should start thinking about what's going to look good on my résumé. There's probably a list of the clubs and activities that Raft sponsors online."

"Oh. Well, yeah, that too, but I was thinking you could show me your portfolio and I could…" Chuck stopped, realizing the completed sentence might sound too much like a double entendre.

Daria picked up on his discomfiture and smiled. "Yeah, I guess we could do that. Get each other's opinion on brokerages, trading software, advice websites, stuff like that. I guess you've learned a lot about the markets from your dad."

"Not as much as I'd like to. I do pick up stuff from him about various companies and corporations, though. He keeps track of companies that are being mismanaged or have cash problems, or other problems that aren't generally known, as potential takeover targets. Not exactly inside knowledge, but similar. If you're thinking about buying stock in a company, mention the name to me, and if I've heard anything I'll tell you."

"I'll do that. What trading software do you like?" Daria asked, gathering up her baskets and detergent.

"Right now I'm using GreenTree's Active Investor package, but I'm thinking of switching to Marley and Hook's level 2 suite. They seem to have a better mix of the analysis tools I want. You?" Chuck replied as he picked up his laundry bag and followed Daria over to some empty seats.

"Oh, I'm using ScotchBroker's basic package because they offer the cheapest trades. I don't do much analysis."

Chuck looked surprised at this. "Then how do you decide which stocks to buy?" he asked as they sat down.

"I pick high beta stocks that go up and down a lot. They work best with my computer trading program."

"You have a computer trading program? Don't you have to have a supercomputer connected directly to the exchange floor for that?"

"It's not that kind of program. It's basically a systematized way of taking profits when a stock is going up, and buying cheap shares when it's down. The heart of it is a fairly simple formula that was originally worked out on a notebook page once a month. There's an interest group that's elaborated on it and refined it and turned it into a computer program. We have a message board and an e-newsletter."

"Huh. Does it work?"

"It outperforms all the averages, and most stock funds. It more than doubled my money last year, but that was an above average performance."

"Sounds interesting," Chuck said, "Tell me more."

…

Daria stowed the last basket of her laundry in the car and headed back into the laundromat. Chuck was still waiting on his last dryer load. As she neared the door, she heard the screeching of an angry woman. A sudden feeling of dread knotted her stomach. She hurried inside.

A woman, yelling and gesticulating, had Chuck backed up against a machine.

"What's the problem here?" Daria asked.

The woman pointed. "This creep was starin' at my undaweah," she accused in a distinctively Boston twang.

Daria followed her pointing arm to a clothes dryer. Articles of clothing gyrated and tumbled in its window, some of them undergarments. "You're kidding, right?"

"Hell no, I ain't kiddin'!"

Daria turned to Chuck, who was blushing and looking flustered. "Were you staring at this woman's underwear?" She picked up the laundry bag off his dryer and thrust it into his hands.

"I was just standing here thinking and waiting for my stuff to finish drying," Chuck said, gesturing at the dryer.

"You wuh starin' at my undies!" the woman insisted.

Daria turned back to the woman. "Are you in those undies?"

"O'coahse not, theah in the dryah!"

"Then so what?"

"He's a pehvuht, that's what!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Daria saw that Chuck had taken the hint and stuffed his laundry into the bag, and was now headed for the exit. "Well, if you think that, you should go find a policeman and tell him all about it."

"I think I will!" The woman rejoined belligerently.

"Good. I'd dearly love to listen in on that conversation, but I have things to do," Daria replied as she turned and followed Chuck out.

…

"So, how do you like it?"

Daria sipped again at the elaborate concoction before her. "Sinfully yummy. If I were a Catholic, I'd probably have to go to confession. What's it called?"

"Two Chocolate Raspberry Latté Suprémo. A small token of my gratitude for keeping that harpy off my tail long enough for me to escape."

"I'd feel better thanked if you'd quit doing things to get women on your tail in the first place. I won't always be there to act as your wingman."

Chuck looked pained and made a gesture as if pleading for understanding. "I didn't do anything. I was just waiting for my clothes to dry."

"You weren't staring at her clothes?"

"I wasn't staring at anything. I was standing there thinking about that stock trading program you told me about and sort of halfway watching my load. My eye might have been caught by some bright yellow panties popping up in the window of her machine, but hell, it's just laundry." Chuck sipped glumly at his identical concoction.

Daria sighed. "Granted, it's illogical, but you can kind of halfway understand a woman not liking you staring at her panties, even if she isn't wearing them at the moment."

"A woman who has problems relating to men, maybe." Chuck fiddled with his straw. "Ha. As if I had room to talk."

Daria studied him, uncertain what to say. "As far as I could see, you didn't do anything wrong. Just put that little contretemps down to big-city people being prickly. But it wouldn't hurt to be more careful about staring at strange laundry from now on."

"Yeah. Maybe. But stuff like that happens to me all the time. I must be doing something wrong. Either that, or I just radiate offensiveness somehow."

"No. You used to be pretty offputting, with those leering, sneering, insinuating pickup lines, but you've gotten away from that. My theory is that you just need practice."

"Hmm," Chuck replied noncommittally, staring at the cherry atop the whipped cream on his latté. _I wish I could believe that, Daria, my sweet. You don't know how much I wish I could believe that._ He stirred the drink with his straw, mixing a little of the whipped cream in, being careful to leave enough to keep the cherry afloat. For a moment he almost did believe it. _But no. Practice might improve my social skills, but the more time I spend in the company of the fairer sex, the more certain it becomes that…but then again, maybe I'll find her. She's out there somewhere. She has to be._ He looked up at Daria, sipping her Two Chocolate Raspberry Latté Supremo across the little table. _She might even be…_

Sensing that Daria was about to look up, Chuck returned his gaze to his drink, just in time to see the diminished whip cream island tip over, and the cherry, the bright, shiny, impossibly red cherry, slip into the murky latté and be lost to sight. Chuck sighed deeply. _If it's Daria,_ he thought, _she's hiding it masterfully._

To fend off the wave of melancholia that suddenly threatened to engulf him, he asked, "Do you come here often?"

"Here specifically? Never."

"Any Sawbuck's."

Daria looked around at the interior of the gourmet coffee shop. "Seldom. They have a few things I like, and a couple, like this, that I really like, but their prices are outrageous. I don't see how they stay in business. There must be a lot more rich people in this country than I thought."

Chuck smiled at that. "Yeah, they are kind of pricey. Will you come in more often when you're rich?"

Daria smiled crookedly. "Probably not. I have an idea of what things are worth, and I hate to pay a lot more than that for something, even when I can afford it. The thought that I'm being cheated takes the enjoyment out of it for me."

He chuckled. "My dad would really like you. Well, that was a dumb thing to say. Obviously he does like you."

Daria cocked an eyebrow at him. "I guess that would depend on your definition of 'like'."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments. As Charles reached the bottom of his glass, his lost cherry appeared. He scooped it out with a spoon, looked at it for a couple of seconds, then picked it up by the stem and popped it into his mouth. Then he looked over at Daria, who had apparently been watching him.

"Through?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Let's get back. I'll show you that program."


	12. Chapter Twelve

Once Upon A Time at College  
Chapter 12

Charles Ruttheimer III was somewhere he'd long dreamed of being, yet never believed he'd actually reach... Daria Morgendorffer's bedroom. The reality, he was finding, fell somewhat short of his imaginings, but it was no less a thrill to be here. The only visible feminine thing in the room was a hairbrush on top of the chest, and the only things that lent her personality to it were a Franz Kafka poster and a plastic model of a human brain. But Daria herself was right behind him as he sat at her desk studying the screen of her laptop, and though she was nowhere in contact with him or even nearly so, it seemed to Charles that he could feel her with every nerve ending on the upper back half of his body.

_Good grief, Ruttheimer, get a grip before you make an ass of yourself, _he told himself as he struggled to grasp what the screen was telling him. "Okay, then what do you do?" he asked Daria.

"There are two main ways you can go from here. You can click on 'Calculate Buy/Sell Points' and the computer will give you the price level and number of shares for the next buy and sell order, and then you execute whichever one the stock price reaches. Or you can just check the stock at some regular or irregular interval, like once a week or once a month, and when the price has gone up or down enough, it'll tell you how many shares to sell or buy at the current price." Daria pointed over Chuck's shoulder at the screen. "You have the option to change the number of shares, then click on 'Execute'. It sends the trade order through your regular stock trading software."

Charles continued to study the screen. "Hmm, I don't know. There are other reasons I might want to buy and sell stock than just the price, and I have a set of buying criteria that work pretty well for me."

"And you can still use them if you want, along with this program. But the thing it does best is help me with the part of investing that most people have the most trouble with, selling shares of a stock while it's going up. We all know it's what we're supposed to do, but most of us wait too long and lose our profits. This program tells me how many shares to sell at what price, and I know that if I do it, I'll come out ahead."

"Hmm. I can see the advantage of that. Okay, I'll go to the website and read their literature. Want me to show you my stock analysis software?"

"Another time. I have to do some homework for tomorrow."

Chuck concealed his disappointment. "Oh. Well, I'll shove off and let you get to it, then." He got up and headed out, Daria accompanying him to the front door. Choosing his words carefully, he turned and said, "I had a good time today."

Daria gave him a small smile. "I did too. See you later."

-o0o-

"Thanks for helping me with dinner, Daria. You don't have to, you know. I'm pretty sure I can manage." Jane was stir-frying vegetables and keeping an eye on a pot of rice.

"No problem. Chinese recipes tend to be preparation-intensive. A Chinese chef is usually backed up by two or more cutter-uppers. Anyway, since I decided to put off schoolwork till after I get a good night's sleep, I've got nothing better to do." Daria cut an onion into long thin slices as she talked.

"Do these veggies look done enough yet?" Jane asked.

"Yeah. Go ahead and throw in the shrimp now, and then give the rice another quick stir so it doesn't stick." Daria used her Chinese cleaver to scoop the sliced onion into a bowl and began to slice beef into long, thin strips.

Jane briefly admired Daria's deft cleaver work and said, "I'm surprised you're so good at this, what with your mom's affinity for frozen lasagna."

Daria smiled slightly. "Dad does a good bit of oriental cooking, and I took to helping him so I'd have a chance to hide most of his peppers."

Jane grinned. "Your dad's a hoot. I wonder how he's doing now that the pepper rustler is gone."

"I'm guessing that either Quinn's learning to swipe the peppers, or he's burned out those last three taste buds by now."

"Hey, girls, is there anything I can help you with?" Trent asked.

"There goes my bum ear again! I thought I heard Trent volunteering to help in the kitchen," Jane smirked.

"He probably wants to get within snatching range of the food," Daria suggested.

"Man, a guy tries to help, and all he gets is abuse," Trent groused.

"Aww, poor misunderstood man," Jane cooed. "You can set the table and put the rice in a bowl."

"Put it in a bowl? Why not just put the pan on the table and save having to wash the bowl?"

"Jeez, Trent, we're trying to pretend we got class here," Jane said.

"Oh, then, by all means," Trent replied, smirking, "Where do you fine ladies keep the Ming rice bowls?"

-o0o-

"I really like this Mongolian beef, Daria," Trent said, helping himself to more.

Daria looked down at the table and smiled. "Jane cooked it; I just cut up the ingredients."

"Don't self-deprecate, Daria," Jane said. "It's your recipe, you put it all together. I just stirred it, like I did with the packaged shrimp stir-fry."

"I just took Dad's recipe and subtracted ninety percent of the hot peppers."

"It's plenty hot for me. I'd hate to try to eat your dad's version."

"I could eat it some hotter, but it's excellent the way it is," Trent said. "Why didn't we have stuff like this at home?"

"Gee, I dunno, Trent, maybe because neither of us could cook worth a flip?"

"That could've been it."

"So, Trent, do you have anybody lined up to see tomorrow?" Daria asked.

"Yeah, I have an appointment with a night club guy at one, and another guy said to come by sometime before six."

"That doesn't sound like a very full day," Jane said.

"The people I need to see don't keep early hours, Janey. There are a couple of places I'm gonna go by in the morning, but there may not be anybody there to talk to. I'll probably pick up a lead or two, though, and maybe I'll be able to see them today too."

Daria rose from the table. "So I guess I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow, and again at dinner."

"Going to bed so early?" Trent asked.

"Yeah. I didn't get much sleep last night, and I want to try to catch up."

"Burning the midnight oil studying for a test?"

"Ha! More like carousing and gambling till oh dark thirty," Jane smirked. "You wouldn't believe what she came in with this morning!"

Daria rinsed her plate in the sink. "Hmph. Well, I wouldn't want to cramp your creative reporting style, Jane, so while you two are working on the Ballad of Wicked Daria, I'm going to take a nice hot shower and hit the sack."

"Good night, Wicked Daria," Jane said.

-o0o-

Early next morning, a just-woken Jane peered around the end of the hallway into the kitchen area, scratching her ribs. "Up already?"

"Yeah," Daria replied, stirring sliced sausage in the skillet. "That's what I get for going to bed early. I thought of waiting till Trent woke up and got dressed before I came out, but..."

"Ha. That would be like the Handsome Prince waiting for Sleeping Beauty to wake up and kiss him. Could be a mighty long wait."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. It's kind of awkward for him, though, since the kitchen and the den are all one room," Daria pointed out, draining grease from the skillet.

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you've never seen Trent in his boxers."

"Only accidentally, never in a situation where he had no choice."

Jane sighed and shook her head. "All right, Daria, to spare Trent's nonexistent modesty and your delicate sensibilities, when breakfast's ready I'll wake him up and you go hide your eyes, and he can put his pants on sight unseen." She smirked. "You really should watch, though. He puts 'em on both legs at once, you know."

"Uhh, better not. I'd probably be distracted all day, and my grades would suffer. Maybe after I graduate."

-o0o-

Her classes at Raft over for the day, Daria opened the door and heard the unmistakable sound of Trent's snoring. He was in the recliner, in the fully reclined position. He was wearing his jacket, as if he'd just come in or was about to go out, but Daria saw that his battered old lyrics book was open on his stomach, and one hand loosely held a pencil.

Smiling a little, Daria proceeded down the hall to her bedroom, deposited her book bag, and hung up her jacket. Then she remembered that Trent had mentioned that he had an appointment to see someone at one this afternoon. She looked at her watch. It was twenty-two after one.

_Maybe the appointment has been canceled or rescheduled, Daria thought as she left her room. Maybe…maybe nothing. This is Trent. He's late._

Daria walked over to the recliner and nudged the armrest with her knee. It waggled back and forth a little. "Trent," she said.

This produced no reaction, so she nudged a little harder and called a little louder. "Trent."

Still nothing. Daria bent over slightly and rapped on the cover of Trent's lyrics noteblook with her knuckles. "Trent!"

"Zznork! Honest, officer, they threw the panties onstage!" Trent started and reflexively grabbed at his lyrics book. He tried to cover his mouth to cough and stabbed himself in the nose with the pencil. Scowling sleepily up at her, he said, "What, Daria?"

"Don't you have an appointment at one?"

"Yeah."

"It's one twenty-four."

He continued to stare for a second, and then began struggling to extricate himself from the recliner. "Oh, crap," he commented sagely.

"Pull the handle," Daria said, pointing.

"Oh, right," Trent replied sheepishly, and pulled the handle. The chair unreclined and he got up and headed for the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and took out an egg, then got a spoon out of the dish drainer and, using the handle end, poked a hole in each end, and sucked the egg out of the shell. Taking the can of coffee from the shelf, he pulled off the plastic lid, scooped out a spoonful of coffee, and ate it. Then he quickly strode to the door, grabbed his guitar case, and was gone.

Daria stared at the door for several seconds, and then turned to regard the items Trent had left on the kitchen counter. Picking up the eggshell with two fingers, she dropped it in the trashcan, then replaced the lid on the coffee can and returned it to the shelf. _No wonder Jane is so easily impressed by cooked food,_ she thought.

-o0o-

Fixing herself a sandwich with a pickle strip, chips, and a cola, Daria pondered what to do with the afternoon. She had four hours free till time to start dinner. She didn't really feel like writing or doing schoolwork. She could spend it on the Internet, but she knew too well that she could spend an almost unlimited amount of time on the Internet and have nothing to show for it. Taking a bite of pickle, she recalled that she needed to get her books for the next quarter. There was a used bookstore not too far away that she'd been meaning to check out. She took another bite of sandwich. She'd need to drive, though, to get back in time to start dinner. Poop. She'd parked her car in her assigned Raft parking space so that Trent could park in her apartment parking space. That was too much of a walk for her to get back here in time. It looked like schoolwork was going to win out. Unless...

Daria picked up the phone and punched in a number. She could hear it ringing in the next apartment. It was picked up midway through the second ring. "Hello?"

"Chuck, it's Daria. Want to check out a used bookstore with me?"

"I'd love to."

"Good. I'm having a bite of lunch. Knock on my door when you're ready to go. Oh, by the way, you're driving."

"Uh, right. See you in a few," Chuck said. A click and a dial tone came through the receiver. He stood there for a second, surprised, staring unfocused into space, then a more characteristic expression crept across his face. "Rrowrr, feisty!" Then, after leering lecherously into space for a few seconds, a different neuron fired. With a cry of "Mouthwash!" he scurried to the bathroom.

Less than fifty feet away, Daria sat at her breakfast bar, staring surprised at her phone. _Did I just say that? Or did Quinn somehow take control of my vocal cords? I should call him back and apo-- uhh, no. Mustn't show weakness, especially not to him. I'll just have to brazen it out._

-o0o-

"So, are you looking for anything in particular?" Chuck asked as he drove.

"I was thinking about next quarter's textbooks, but I just generally like to check out bookstores. And there are so many in Boston."

"Ah, yes, I remember this about you. It was the first thing we found we had in common. It's even what we did on our first... dare I say... date?"

Daria smiled a little, remembering the day last summer when they'd driven into Baltimore and hit all the bookstores they could find . "Go ahead, I won't hit you. Not for that anyway. It was a date. A nerdy date, but a date nonetheless."

Chuck's face fell. "Nerdy? You didn't have a good time? But I thought..."

"Sure I had a good time. I'm a nerd. Nerds love books."

He cast a couple of quick sideways glances her way. Detecting no evidence of mockery in her smile, he smiled too.

-o0o-

In the bookstore, Chuck looked up from his perusal of the action/adventure shelves to keep track of Daria's current location.

He saw her nearby, rapidly scanning bookshelves as if she were merely looking for a book of a particular color. _But I'll bet twenty bucks she's reading every title,_ he thought as he headed toward her. Suddenly her face lit up with pleasure and she stretched to reach two large ornate paperback books on a high shelf. Seeing her like that made him ache.

She was examining her treasures as he approached. "Find something?" he asked.

"I'll say. Both volumes of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, for only five dollars each! They're seventy-five dollars at the campus bookstore, sixty-seven fifty on Amazon," she replied, her semi-monotone delivery failing to hide her excitement.

"Seventy-five dollars for paperbacks? That's outrageous!" he hazarded, unsure how best to respond.

"Not considering what's in them," she replied, handing him the first volume.

He took it and began to flip through it. "This is printed on bible paper." He turned to the last page. "Good grief, this book has over two thousand pages!"

"Volume one covers ancient, medeival, and renaissance literature. It's a required textbook for at least three classes that I know of. It's the equivalent of a whole shelf full of normally printed books."

"Huh. Look at this. It starts with Genesis and ends with Milton's Paradise Lost."

Daria was examining the other volume. "This one covers the Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century, and it's even bigger. I've wanted a set of these for years." She ran a hand caressingly over the fine paper.

"But all your textbooks are paid for. Aren't you going to get a set of new hardcovers? I would."

Daria closed the massive paperback, gazing at it with regret. "Yeah, I guess. Damn, that takes a lot of the fun out of bargain hunting. I guess I should leave them for someone else to find, someone who needs a bargain." She started to lift it back up to the shelf whence she'd gotten it. "Like Abigail Carter. She'll be in my Ancient Lit class next quarter, and she's having a hard time making ends meet."

"So you're going to tell her about these so she can come down here and get them?"

"Yeah, I... come to think of it, that'd be silly. I'll save her the trip and make sure someone else doesn't get them first. I'll buy them for her."

Charles watched fascinated as the delighted smile returned to Daria's face. He'd bet a lot that she had no idea how beautiful she was when she smiled like that. She might not even realize she was smiling. He grasped a corner of the book she was holding and lifted slightly. "Allow me."

The look she gave him was puzzled and slightly hostile for a fraction of a second, then she realized that he was offering to carry it for her. She released it with a small, shy smile. "Thanks," she said.

_She's not used to having guys carry her books. That's almost a crime. On the other hand, better for me._

Daria went back to scanning the titles on the shelves at that incredible rate. _Damn_, he thought, watching her, _I wish I could read half that fast._ He looked down at the ponderous volumes in his hands. _I be she could almost read one of these in one sitting._

-o0o-

Later, Daria and Chuck munched bean cakes they'd bought at an oriental snack shop on their way back to his car.

"Hm. Not as sweet as the pastry I'm used to, but not bad. If they'd sweeten those beans a little more…" Chuck mused.

"I don't think they sweeten them at all," Daria said. "A Chinese woman told me the beans are naturally sweet. She said that, in China, they make a sort of ice cream out of them, too."

Chuck considered that. "Chinese sweet black bean ice cream. I'd really like to try that, if only out of curiosity." They walked a few steps in silence, then he sighed deeply.

Daria looked askance at him. "Penny for your melancholic thoughts."

"I was just thinking of those three long years of high school when we could have been doing things like this."

"That's silly. There was no place in Lawndale that sold Chinese black bean cakes."

He smiled wryly. "You know I've long wanted to take you out, Daria. I don't remember how many times I asked you out in high school, but you always said no."

"Just like every other girl in school?"

"Pretty much. But I think I asked you more times than all the others put together."

"But it was always pretty much the same invitation. Dinner at a fancy restaurant, then some sexy movie or something from your video collection at your house."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's just not my idea of a first date. It's the kind of date that's obviously calculated to end up in the sack."

He thought about that for a minute, then asked, "Well, what sort of invitation would you have accepted for a first date?"

Daria looked off toward the horizon, then said, "Something less… threatening. Something less fraught with carnal intent. Something less… datelike."

He looked puzzled. "An un-datelike date?"

"Yeah. Remember the night we met?"

A deer-in-the-headlights look came over Chuck's face. He sensed a trap. "Uhhh…"

It was all Daria could do to keep from grinning. It was so tempting to torture him, but some part of her protested that that would be a girly thing to do. She decided to let him off the hook.

"At Brittany's party. You offered me and Jane a tour of the house. We accepted. Afterward, you spotted us at the Crewe Neck gatehouse and offered us a ride home. We accepted. No pressure. We talked. It was… not unpleasant."

Chuck looked thoughtful. "Yeah. Looking back on it, that was actually one of the high water marks of my high school social life. I guess I didn't top that till I started teaching Stacy magic. But those weren't dates."

"So? You're too hung up on the 'date' concept. There are other ways of relating to girls."

"I've tried other ways. I've tried all the ways I could think of."

"You mean like that brilliant tactic you used on the trip to the Mall of the Millennium? When you shoved your dad's gold card in our faces and wanted us to model bikinis for you? Gee, I can't imagine why we weren't just all over that one."

"All right, maybe that was… less than subtle. But how about that medieval faire thing, when I was a minstrel. I thought maybe singing romantic ballads to the ladies would spark some interest…"

Daria gave him a look, then burst out laughing.

"Well, what was wrong with that?"

Daria smothered another snicker and said, "It was that court jester costume. Could you possibly have looked more gay?"

"Well, I'm glad my humiliation brings a smile to your sweet face," Chuck groused.

"Hey, at least you partially understand your role in life. You're ahead of a lot of guys your age."

"My cup runneth over. What's the rest of my role in life?"

"Opening stuck jar lids and appliance repair," Daria deadpanned.

"Wow. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. Seriously, though, what would you consider to be a good first date?" Chuck asked, looking at Daria.

Daria popped the last bite of bean cake into her mouth and munched thoughtfully. "Well, I'm far from an expert, but on the first few dates, I think the important thing is just talking and getting to know each other. There should be some sort of activity, something to get the conversation started if nothing else. I don't think the guy should spend a lot of money, because that sort of implies that the girl owes him something, and that would make me feel uncomfortable. Doing something together that both would have done anyway is good. For instance, going to a store."

"Now don't I feel like an idiot! If I'd played my cards right, I could've dated you."

Daria gave him a fishy look. "You sound suspiciously like you're forgetting that you did have a date with me."

Charles thought fast. "Oh, no, I could never forget that wonderful day we spent bookstore hopping, and sharing lunch and dinner, not to mention the drive to Baltimore and back, although I deeply regret that we never did it again. I meant that I might have had more dates with you."

Daria smiled a tiny smile. _Nice save._ "Never say never again."

Charles felt a double thrill, at Daria's playful use of the James Bond title and at the distinct implication that the brilliant bombshell was willing to go out with him again.

-o0o-

As she rode with Chuck back toward the apartments, Daria said, "So, I guess you're looking forward to Thanksgiving. Your Dad's still coming home, right?"

"He was the last I heard, but I'll expect him when I see him. He's got a lot of deals in the works, and stuff is always coming up."

"My mom's a workaholic too. Always bringing work home, never takes time off unless she's about to lose it."

"Be glad you have a mom. And I'd love for Dad to bring work home, instead of the work taking him to the ends of the earth."

"You never told me anything about your mom."

"She was great. She loved me very much, and I loved her. She died when I was eight."

"I'm sorry. And your dad never remarried?"

"No. He was pretty broken up when Mom died, and he threw himself into his work. In fact, he threw himself so well that his business was a worldwide empire within two years. After that, he never had time for a social life, and apparently he never met anyone through his work."

"Damn. And his businesses are all overseas?"

"Naah. He owns Lawndale Heavy Equipment and Lawndale Concrete, but he hardly ever has to look in on those. And anyplace he goes that's more than fifty miles away might as well be overseas. He'll phone or email sometimes, or send a message through an underling, but he won't drop by. It just doesn't occur to him. I just found out last month that he was in D. C. when we graduated last year. Said he was very busy, very important business, couldn't get away."

"Geez, that stinks. And I thought my family was dysfunctional."

"Daria, from what I've heard about your family and others, I'd have to say that yours is one of the least dysfunctional I know of."

"Now there's a genuinely scary thought. Well listen, that invitation to Thanksgiving dinner still stands. Jane's eating with us, and Mom always lays on enough to feed two platoons of marines."

Chuck pulled into his parking slot behind the apartment building and shut off the engine. "Thanks, Daria, but I hope I won't be able to take you up on it."

"Yeah, I hope not too," she said, reaching for the sack with her books in it. Grinnning, he snatched it before she could. She shrugged and got out her key to open the back door.

On the third floor, he waited as she found her apartment key. As she opened the door and took the books from him, he puckered up to kiss her.

Several possible actions flashed through Daria's mind. Knee him in the groin, slap his face, shove the books in between them so that he kissed the bag they were in, shout something like, "Hey! Whaddya think you're doing," explain to him logically why kissing would be inappropriate, duck inside quickly and put off dealing with the whole messy situation till later. Quick as a woodchuck down its burrow, she chose the last option and ducked under his protruding lips and into her apartment. "Thanks, Chuck, see you tomorrow," she said.

He opened his eyes to see Daria turning and pushing the door closed. Over her head, he saw Jane and that guy he was pretty sure was Jane's brother staring wide-eyed at him. Then the door closed and he was standing in the hallway, alone and feeling stupid.What had happened? This was their second date, wasn't it? He was supposed to get at least a kiss, wasn't he? What had he done wrong?

Chuck stared at the closed door and scratched his head, then turned for the short, lonesome walk to his small apartment at the end of the hall. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the door of apartment 302 was open a crack. He looked up just in time to see a thin strip of face with one staring eye before the door closed. _Wonderful. That makes three unwanted witnesses to my being shot down,_ he thought as he trudged off. _ It'll probably show up on **Funniest Home Videos** next week._

Inside her apartment, Daria was faced with twin smirks from Jane and Trent. "Ooh, hot date, huh? Did you let him get any?" Jane asked.

"I'm gonna let you get some right upside the head," Daria shot back, "and then I'll leave your unconscious form outside his door and let him get that."

Jane grinned. "Oh, Daria, you're such a tease. You get 'em all hot and bothered and then you leave 'em for others to deal with. Now, if you'd do that with Crusher, I might not mind."

Trent was recovering from a laughing/coughing fit. "One of you two is a bad influence on the other one. I'm just not sure which one."

"It's definitely Jane," Daria groused. "She's going to get me in a lot of trouble one day when I kill her."

"Hee hee! So what were you two doing that got him all in the mood, anyway?" Jane asked.

"Not a thing! We just went to a used bookstore," Daria said, holding up her purchases.

"And?"

"And nothing. We ate a bean cake and talked a little."

"About?"

"Oh, about how few dates he had in high school, and what he might have done differently and... oh, crap."

"Aha! 'Not a thing,' eh? Ri-i-ight."

"Hell, I was just giving him some basic, generalized dating advice from a female perspective."

"Which he probably interpreted as specific 'what you like to do on a date' advice," Trent said.

"Dammit, I cannot have him trying to date me!"

"Would it be all that bad?"

Daria sighed. "Yes, it would. I'm supposed to be his friend, his advisor, his tutor if need be. That's what my scholarship's for. That's why his dad's paying for this apartment. As long as he's making satisfactory progress at Raft, my education is paid for. But a dating relationship is unstable by its very nature. It'll either progress to something more serious, or we'll break up. Either way, it'll screw up the friend-advisor relationship, and my college career with it."

"Oh. Bummer."

"Well, you're just gonna have to explain it to him, Daria," Jane said. "He's a smart kid. He'll understand."

"Yeah, I guess. But I'm going to take my time and figure out just what to say, and just how to say it."


	13. Chapter 13

**ONCE UPON A TIME AT COLLEGE  
Chapter Thirteen**

Daria headed back toward her room to hang up her coat. "Well, guess I'd better get started on dinner."

"I'll help," Jane said. "What are we having for Trent's last night here?"

"Senate Bean Soup," Daria called from her bedroom. You can put that package of frozen mustard greens on."

"Senate Bean Soup? Do they call it that because it gives you extra gas?" Trent asked as Daria returned.

Daria smiled. "Naah, senators are born with extra gas. They call it that because this is the bean soup recipe they serve in the Senate cafeteria. It's actually very good." She turned on a large stove burner and set a pressure cooker on it, removing the lid.

Trent peered over Daria's shoulder into the cooker. "You're making it with dry beans? They're gonna be hard, unless you cook 'em an awful long time."

"That's what the pressure cooker is for," Daria replied. "Twenty minutes, and I guarantee they'll be tender. I've presoaked these beans, but with a pressure cooker it's not really necessary." She retrieved a paper-wrapped chunk of ham from the refrigerator.

Thirty minutes later, the three seated themselves around the breakfast bar and dug in. "Mmm, this tastes great," Trent observed. "I had some doubts when I saw you put the cinnamon and nutmeg in it, but this is the best bean soup I ever had. And you're right, the beans are tender."

Jane's eyes flicked from Trent to Daria as she ate. "Yeah, what he said. The mustard greens are good, too. But you forgot to put the sugar in the cornbread."

"No, I didn't. Grandma called that "yankee cornbread", and she only made it to eat with milk. We'd have it for breakfast sometimes when we visited her. She said she used to eat it that way for supper too, all by itself. But to eat with beans and greens, or anything else, unsweetened cornbread is better."

"Mmm. Can't argue with that. Is this your dad's mother?"

"No, Mom's."

"Really? Your mom doesn't cook like this, does she?"

"Very seldom. Grandma was all about teaching domestic skills and feminine graces. How to catch and keep your man. Happy homemaker stuff. Rita got into it,especially the catching part, but Mom rejected the whole package, partly because she hated Rita's guts. Most of what I know about cooking I picked up on my own."

"Except for this?" Trent asked.

"Even this, really. I watched Grandma cook a meal like this once when I was ten, even helped with the cornbread, but I had to get the Senate Bean Soup recipe off the Internet. If I hadn't discovered for myself how dead easy most cooking is, I'd probably be a worse cook than Mom."

Jane paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. "Easy?"

"Sure. Follow the recipe and it works. Pretty soon you start to understand the principles, and you can make your own recipes. Boring, maybe, but easy. So, Trent, did you get any gigs today?"

"One maybe and one after the first of the year."

"That's good. Which one was that first guy?"

"Aah, he was an asshole. Wouldn't talk to me."

Daria said "hm," and ate a spoonful of bean soup. _I wonder if that had anything to do with you being an hour or so late for your appointment._

"Oh, Daria, you got a letter. Looks like it's from Chuck's dad." Jane held it up.

--o0o--

In his apartment, Chuck the third was opening a similar letter. A fat airline ticket fell out, and he grabbed it. His eyebrows shot up. "_Ankara!_"

--o0o--

Daria tore one end off the envelope and removed the contents. "Hmm... guidelines for me... copy of Chuck's guidelines... This is strange. Seems that Chuck the second's grasp of the concept of Thanksgiving is a bit off."

"What do you mean?" Jane asked.

"Well, instead of getting together to eat turkey, he and Chuck the third are getting together _in_ Turkey."

--o0o--

"I've got an early class this morning, Trent, but I made you this jug of lemonade. The bottom three-fourths of it is frozen, and I've wrapped it in insulating foam, so it should stay cold all day. Drive carefully, and have a good trip back to Lawndale."

Trent took the jug. "Thanks, Daria, and thanks for putting me up. I couldn't have afforded to come up here otherwise." He bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

Daria smiled and blushed. "It was good to see you. I'm sorry you weren't able to line up more gigs. Well, uh, 'bye." She slipped out the door.

Trent slung his guitar case on his back and looked around the den area. "Looks like that's it. My other stuff is already loaded. I guess I'd better be getting back to Lawndale."

"Yeah, I guess you'd better."

He turned at the anger in her tone. "What's the matter, Janie?"

"Daria was too nice to mention it, but the reason you didn't line up more gigs is that you goofed off and overslept and generally didn't try. Boston is a huge city, Trent. There are hundreds of places the Spiral could play here." Jane sighed and shook her head. "Well, maybe it's for the best. If you'd gotten enough gigs to make a Boston tour worthwhile, it would just be delaying the inevitable. You guys all have real jobs now. Maybe it's time to put Mystik Spiral in the scrapbook and get on with your lives."

"Janie, don't say that. You're talking about my dream here."

"Trent, if you're not willing to go after it with everything you've got, maybe you should let it go. Like I did."

"Huh? You're going after your dream, and you're doing great so far. That's why you're here."

"Not that dream. I had another dream, that Daria would be my sister-in-law some day. She still has feelings for you, you know. I guess I was hoping that you coming up and staying here would stir them up, and maybe... well, that didn't happen. What happened was that you reminded her of the reasons her old crush faded away. I still think Daria would be really good for you, Trent, but I see now that you wouldn't be so good for her."

He sighed and smiled a sad smile. "You finally figured that out? I've been knowing that for years. Sometimes I doubt there's a handsome prince out there good enough to deserve Daria, but I know there are more promising frogs than me. I hope she finds one worth kissing."

Jane stared at her brother for several seconds as her eyes misted up, then rushed across the space that separated them and hugged him fiercely. More gently, he hugged her back. At length she said, "You're a much better frog than you think you are, Trent, and there are lots of princesses out there who'd be damn lucky to kiss you. Even if they get a wart doing it!"

He released her. "I hope you're right about that. Well, I should go."

"Wait." She handed him a sack off the breakfast bar. "I fixed you some sandwiches and stuff."

"Aw, thanks, Janie. You always did make the best sandwiches."

--o0o--

"I bet I can find pictures of it in a few seconds," Stacy said as she clicked on a button marked SEARCH. As the Gargle screen came up she clicked on PICTURES and began typing. "Morningstar is such a pretty name for a weapon. It sounds like something Sailor Moon would use," she said as she hit ENTER.

"Eww-w-w!" Tiffany said a couple of seconds later as a page of small images came up.

"Ewww is right," Sandi agreed. "Definitely an accessory don't. And Daria was walking around Boston with one of those? I don't think I could lift most of them, and I wouldn't if I could."

"That's according to her friend Jane. I don't know whether I believe her or not. Anyway, I think she said she won it in a poker game. Stacy, those pictures came up really fast. Do you think you can Gargle up some pics of 'Crusher' Kujowski that fast?"

"Let's find out," Stacy replied, typing rapidly.

In seconds the page was again filled with thumbnail images, and the four girls clustered closer to the screen. "Omigosh, omigosh," Stacy said.

"Heee'ss cuuute," Tiffany drawled.

"He's _big_," Sandi said.

"Huge," Quinn agreed. "Jane said he was six seven."

Stacy scrolled slowly down the page, then clicked for the next page of thumbs. As they came up, her finger stabbed out at one. "Omigod, omigod, look!" she cried.

It was a thumbnail of several players with cheerleaders on their shoulders. "What are you babbling about now, Stacy? We already know he's big."

"Look who that is on his shoulder!" Stacy squeaked.

"O-o-o-ohh... my-y-y-y..." Tiffany began.

"What? It's a cheerleader," Sandi shrugged.

Quinn leaned in as close as she could get, and gasped. "No. No, it can't be. Click on it!"

Stacy clicked on the thumbnail, and it was replaced with a page from the Raft Reavers' website. She quickly zoomed in on the desired image. The caption said it was the Reavers' defensive line, and named the players from left to right. But the four girls' attention was focused on the face of the girl sitting on Al Kujowski's shoulder.

"It _is!_" Quinn exclaimed.

"_Daria?_" Sandi was incredulous.

"Shhee haas cuute kneees," Tiffany observed.

"Yeah, she has Barksdale legs," Quinn said. "Stacy, if you can make me a nice big print of that photo, you're my pal for life."

Stacy grinned. "Coming right up!

"Ooh, Kuh-winn, I smell blackmail!" Sandi grinned evilly.

"Oh, no, this is too good for blackmail," Quinn replied.

"Huh? How can anything be too good for blackmail?"

"I could show this print to Daria and ask for a lot of money and she'd pay it, or save it for when I need a really big favor and she'd do it, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to give up seeing the look on Mom's face when I show her this, or the look on Daria's face when she comes home and Mom shows it to her, not for all the money in Daria's Montana cabin fund."

"Bu-ut, shee loooks pretty coool iiinn thiiss piicturre. Whyy..."

"Why would she not want us to see it? Because she's Daria. For as long as I can remember, she's had this better-than-thou attitude, like she was looking down on all us mere mortals from Mount Olympics, or from her ivy tower, and sneering at everything I, I mean we, thought was important. You probably heard some of the cracks she used to make about jocks and cheerleaders and fashionistas when she was still at Lawndale High. I heard a lot of it. Well, now here she is, dating this huge jock, and she's a cheerleader! The last time I caught her being human was when she got her navel pierced a couple of years ago. But when I told Mom and Dad and they checked, suddenly she wasn't pierced, and they thought I was crazy or lying, and she just laughed at me! Well, now I shall finally have my revenge! Mu-u-ahahahahaa!"

-o0o-

Jane entered the apartment and stopped. Daria was in her favorite chair, fully reclined, fast asleep. Grinning, Jane catfooted back to her room to put away her books, coat, scarf, and knit cap. She was back in the kitchen, peering into the open refrigerator door when the phone rang. She grabbed it before it could ring again.

"Boston diversion facility for wayward girls. Oh, hi, Trent. Did you make it home okay? You didn't... you did... uh huh... hmm. And did you do any good? Uh huh... well, I'd have to ask Daria. Let me see if she's awake." Jane looked over to the recliner. Daria hadn't moved, but one eye was watching her from beneath an inquisitively cocked eyebrow.

"Trent's still in the area. He, uh, thought of some more places to check. He wants to know if he can borrow a patch of floor for one more night."

Daria smiled. "Sure, no problem. It'll be just the two of you tonight. I've got a poker game, and I won't get back here till twelve thirty or one."

"Daria says it's okay," Jane said into the phone. She listened, then said to Daria, "He wants to know if he should bring pizza."

"Not for me. The game I'm going to always has pizza, sandwiches, beer, and soft drinks. They skim the first few pots to pay for it."

Jane said, "Trent? Daria's going to be eating out tonight, so if you want pizza, you and I could go to Mama Mimi's. It's an all-you-can-eat place near here. Or I can cook chicken leg quarters, green beans, and baked potatoes real quick. That's what I was going to fix." She listened, then said, "Okay, see you then."

She hung up and turned to Daria. "He's going to take a chance on my cooking, then he's going back out to see two more guys later this evening."

Daria got up. "I'll go lay down in my room, then. Feel free to make a moderate amount of racket. Wake me at five thirty if I'm not already up"

Jane got out the bag of potatoes. "Okay. I should be able to do this quietly."

-o0o-

"Hey Jane, if you've got a minute, tell me what you think of this outfit."

Jane walked into Daria's room. "Whoa. That's different."

Daria turned from studying her reflection in her dresser mirror. She was wearing a purple silk blouse with the top two buttons undone. As she moved, the partly open front sometimes showed cleavage, sometimes not. The thin material revealed to a sharp eye that she was not wearing a bra, and didn't need one.

"Tactical fashion. There will be a guy at the game tonight who's supposed to be very good, but I found out he has a thing for petite girls with perky boobs. So I thought maybe I'd find out how good his concentration is."

"You're compiling dossiers on potential poker opponents?"

"I haven't gone that far yet, but it doesn't hurt to ask a few questions. Lots of high-level players do that and more. Who knows, some of the others may have been asking around about me. But what do you think about the outfit, Jane? Is it too much?"

Jane looked Daria up and down. She was also wearing an above-the-knee straight black skirt, black hose, and black leather slip-ons with inch and a half heels.

"Well, I have exactly zero experience with poker games richer than penny ante, but from what I remember seeing on TV and the movies, that outfit is about par for female poker players; maybe even a little on the conservative side. Of course, those games were mostly in taverns and casinos and smoke-filled back rooms."

"This one is going to be in a smoke-filled den of iniquity, so I guess those fictional games apply."

"Ooh, a real den of iniquity? Where?"

"It's the den of a Bromwell student's apartment, over on Cowpens. I think that qualifies."

Jane snickered. "A den of stuffy iniquity, maybe. So, what made you decide to bring out the heavy artillery?"

Daria thought for a second, then said, "Well, it seems that, as you get into the more serious, high-stakes games, you have to use all you've got. I've been asking myself if I really want to get into games like that, and I've concluded that I want to find out just how good I am, and that I've got more of a competitive streak than I thought I did. I really like to win, Jane."

"Ha! Really? I'd've never known. So this is a high-stakes game?"

"It's what they call modified table stakes. No less than one thousand, no more than three, no adding to or subtracting from your stake after play begins. Don't know if there's a standard definition for 'high stakes', but I think of this as one level down from a high stakes game."

"Wow! You mean you're taking a thousand bucks?"

"No, of course not. I'm taking three. Any less, and I'd be saddling myself with a disadvantage. So, you don't think this outfit is too skanky?"

Jane replied seriously, "I think it's entirely appropriate for the occasion. But try it out on Trent. If he loses his language skills, it's just right. If he loses all motor control and falls in a heap, it might be too much."

Daria started to demur, but couldn't think of a cogent objection. She was about to let a bunch of strangers see her in this outfit; there was no logical reason why Trent shouldn't. She looked dubiously at Jane. Jane hiked an eyebrow inquiringly, as if to say. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" Her expression changing to one of determination, Daria grabbed her coat and walked down the hall into the kitchen area.

Behind her Jane said, a bit louder than necessary, "Want a chicken leg and some beans before you go? I fixed plenty."

With studied casualness, Daria took a position where the light angled across the front of her blouse, picking out the slightest bumps and dips with highlights and shadows. "No thanks, Jane, there'll be plenty to eat at the game. Smells good, though."

Trent, seated at the breakfast bar, had just started in on a baked potato and was picking up a drumstick. He looked up at Daria and his eyes locked on her purple blouse. The chicken leg fell to his plate with a thump.

Jane moved to a position whence she could see both Trent and Daria. "So when do you expect to be back? About dawn?"

Daria shifted her stance slightly, causing the unbuttoned part of her blouse to flap open and closed. She inhaled and said, "No; the game is over at midnight. It's one of the house rules. So I should be back between twelve thirty and one." Pieces of baked potato fell unheeded from Trent's mouth. Daria and Jane both kept straight faces and pretended not to see.

"We'll probably still be up by then. Be careful," Jane said. Trent blinked and mostly closed his mouth.

Daria put one arm into a coat sleeve, then stretched both arms behind her back to reach the other sleeve. Trent's elbow slid off the breakfast bar and his face landed in his green beans.


End file.
